1  fc.,  ti 


OUTLINE  MISSIONARY  SERIES. 


o 


— 


N 


Boo 


BY 


J*  T.  GRACEY,  D.  D. 


ROCHESTER,  N.  Y.: 
J.  T.  GRACEY. 

1897. 


CONTENTS. 


Page. 

Africa . 3 

Bulgaria . 58 

Burma . 29 

Central  America . 52 

China . 34 

India . 21 

Islands  of  the  Sea.  . .  . « . ! . 61 

Australia . 61 

Borneo . 64 

Java . 63 

Madagascar .  62 

Malay  Archipelago . 63 

New  Guinea . 64 

Polynesia . 62 

Singapore . 64 

Sumatra  .  63 

The  Celebes . 64 

The  Molucca  Islands. . . . 64 

Japan . 11 

Korea . 19 

Mexico . 38 

Persia  and  Central  Asia . 60 

Siam  and  Laos  . 32 

South  America . 44 

Turkish  Empire . . 54 

Map  of  Africa  . 2 

“  “  Burma  and  Siam . ..30 

“  “  Congo  Free  State  .  5 

“  “  India .  . 22 

“  “  Japan  .  12 


OUTLINE  MISSIONARY  SERIES 


OPEN  DOORS: 


HINTS  ABOUT  OPPORTUNITIES  FOR  CHRISTIAN  WORK  IN 
AFRICA,  JAPAN,  INDIA,  BURMA,  CHINA,  MEXICO, 
SOUTH  AMERICA,  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE, 

KOREA,  AND  THE  ISLANDS 
OF  THE  SEA. 


BY 

J.  T.  GRACEY,  D.  D. 


Seven  years  Missionary  in  India  :  Member  of  the  American  Oriental 
Society  :  Member  International  Congress  of  Oriental¬ 
ists  :  Hon.  Member  A  merican  Society 
of  Comparative  Religion. 


J.  T.  GRACEY. 
ROCHESTER,  N.  Y.; 
1897. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


“  in  the  political,  commercial  and  geographical  annals  of  Europe,  and  especially 
in  those  of  Great  Britain,  the  name  of  Africa  has  been  writ  large  during  the  past 
few  years.” 

AM  as  certain  of  the  conversion  of  Africa  to 
God,”  said  the  sainted  pioneer  missionary, 
Latimer  Neville,  “as  I  am  of  the  rising  of  the 
sun  to-morrow  morning.’’ 

“The  idea  of  a  chain  of  missions  will  yet  be 
taken  up  by  succeeding  generations  and  carried  out, 
said  the  toil-worn,  self-denying  African  missionary,  Di. 
Ivrapf,  “for  the  idea  is  always  conceived  ten  years  before 
the  deed  comes  to  pass.  This  idea  I  bequeath  to  every 
missionary  coming  to  East  Africa.  Every  one  who  is  a 
real  patriot  will  open  this  bequest  and  take  his  portion 
out  of  it,  as  a  fellow-partaker  of  the^  tribulation,  of  the 
patience  and  of  the  kingdom  of  our  God.” 

Krapf  did  not  quail  at  the  cost.  He  said:  "The  first 
resident  of  the  new  mission  ground  is  a  dead  pel  son  of 
the  missionary  circle;  our  God  bids  us  first  to  build  a 
cemetery  before  we  build  a  church  or  dwelling-house, 
showing  us  by  this  lesson  that  the  resurrection  of  East 
Africa  must  be  effected  by  our  own  destruction.”  When 
three  mechanics  died  he  wrote:  “‘That  is  fine  business, 
you  will  say,  ‘the  heavy  part  of  the  army  is  beaten,  and 
the  light  division  completely  unnerved,  and  yet  you  will 
conquer  Africa,  will  draw  a  chain  of  missions  between  the 
East  and  the  West.’  ” 

The  utterances  of  Neville  and  Krapf  come  with  the 
clarion  ring  of  the  boldest  of  the  Hebrew  Prophets. 
They  were  men  “crying  in  the  wilderness.”  They  have 
gone,  but  their  track  is  ablaze  with  the  light  of  their 
zeal,  their  faith  and  their  prophecies.  Was  it  instinct  or 
revelation  that  justified  Krapf’ s  charge  to  the  Christian 
Church  to  put  a  chain  of  missions  across  a  continent 
almost  five  thousand  miles  in  width? — a  continent  so  wide 
as  to  cover  land  and  ocean  eastward  from  the  Pacific 


4 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


coast  to  Ireland — a  land  with  an  area  three  times  as  great 
as  that  of  Europe,  with  a  central  river  draining  three  mil¬ 
lion  square  miles  more  than  are  contained  in  the  Mis¬ 
sissippi  valley,  and  with  another  river,  “the  gift  of  the 
Gods/’  to  Egypt,  whose  length  is  equal  to  one-eleventh 
of  the  circumference  of  the  globe — a  land,  with  one- 
seventh  of  the  population  of  the  globe.  Is  this  land,  this 
wonderful  land,  that  Neville  was  sure  would  be  brought  to 
Christ,  and  whose  slave-chains  Krapf  was  sure  would  be 
substituted  by  a  trans-continental  chain  of  Christian  mis¬ 
sions — this  land  to  which  our  own  sacred  books  make 
more  allusion  than  to  any  other — this  Continent  that 
sheltered  Abraham  when  driven  by  famine  from  Canaan, 
which  nurtured  Jacob  and  afforded  shelter  to  a  greater 
than  Abraham — the  land  of  the  Cyrene  who  bore  the 
cross  of  the  world’s  Redeemer — the  land  of  Cyprian  and 
of  the  fiery  Tertullian — is  this  land  open  to  us? 

The  very  antiquity  of  its  history  and  literature  and  art 
appeals  to  our  reverence.  It  is  older  than  Homer’s  Iliad 
— older  than  Plato’s  Dialogues — older  than  the  oldest  of 
the  books  of  the  Chinese,  “the  Kings” — older  than  the 
oldest  of  the  sacred  books  of  the  Hindus,  the  Vedas — 
older  than  Moses  and  his  Pentateuch.  Its  history  was 
old  before  Abraham  forsook  Terah.  Its  art  was  old 
before  Roman  or  Greek  quarried  granite  or  marble  for 
Parthenon  or  Pantheon. 

“Four  thousand  years  ago  the  great  Pharaohs  of  Egypt 
were  piling  up  their  pyramids,  hewing  out  obelisks,  build¬ 
ing  their  massive  temples  and  carving  the  gigantic 
images  which  amaze  all  modern  beholders.”  Its  stone¬ 
faced  sphynx  has  seen  the  legions  of  Napoleon  and 
Alexander,  and  the  plagues  of  Jehovah  which  released 
the  Hebrew  slaves  from  the  brick-yards. 

The  explorations  of  the  last  thirty  years  have  revealed 
Africa  almost  as  thoroughly  as  the  discovery  of  Colum¬ 
bus  revealed  America.  Livingstone  penetrated  from  the 
Cape  to  Ujiji,  Schweinfurth  pierced  the  continent  from 
the  north-west;  the  east  had  been  discovered  by  way  of 
the  Nile,  the  Zambesi  and  the  Shire,  but  the  greater  work 


6 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


yet,  the  work  essential  to  Krapf’s  chain  of  stations  con¬ 
necting  east  and  west  Africa,  was  that  done  by  Stanley 
in  his  march  “from  salt  sea  to  salt  sea.” 

Only  for  no  miles  from  the  sea  on  the  west  had  the 
Congo  been  penetrated.  There  Tuckey  and  his  noble 
band  of  navigators  died  of  fever  seventy-four  years  ago; 
died,  but  left  the  Congo  basin  unknown.  What  do  we 
know  now  about  this  trans-continental  water  system? 

We  know  that  above  these  rapids  which  seventy  years 
ago  arrested  progress  a  hundred  miles  from  the  Atlan¬ 
tic,  the  Congo  is  navigable  in  an  unbroken  stretch  for  a 
thousand  miles.  We  know  that  there  are  almost  innum¬ 
erable  affluents  of  the  Congo  by  which  this  hitherto 
unknown  tenth  part — “the  richest  tenth  part  of  Africa 
can  be  threaded  with  commerce  and  civilization.  We 
know  that  by  providing  for  the  carriage  around  two 
waterfalls,  the  one  hundred  miles  of  navigable  water  at 
the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  the  eleven  hundred  miles 
above  those  first  rapids  are  supplemented  by  another 
two  thousand  miles  of  navigable  waters  of  the  Congo. 
We  know  that  there  are  great  lakes  with  which  this 
Congo  system  is  connected,  affording  a  water-fiont  of 
three  thousand  miles.  We  know  that  this  Congo  basin 
is  estimated  to  contain  an  area  of  roughly,  eight  hundred 
million  acres.  We  know  that  it  is  estimated  to  contain 
eighty  thousand  towns,  and  forty — possibly  fifty  million 
souls.  We  know  that  over  these  water  highways  the 
merchant  and  the  missionary  may  push  their  boats  over 
seventeen  thousand  miles  of  a  river  system,  and  thirty 
thousand  square  miles  of  a  lake  system.  . 

What  a  marvelous  change  in  the  conditions  of  approach 

to  these  people! 

The  action  of  the  Brussels  Conference  contains  a  series 
of  measures  calculated  to  repress  the  slave  trade,  pro¬ 
hibiting  the  importation  of  fire-arms,  and  providing  for 
the  establishment  of  strong  stations  in.  the  interior  to 
serve  as  refuges  for  the  native  population.  The  roads 
followed  by  slave-dealers,  and  especially  the  places  of 
crossing  of  the  principal  caravan  routes,  are  to  be 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


7 


watched,  and  caravans  are  to  be  stopped  or  pursued 
wherever  it  can  be  done  legally.  For  the  repression  of 
the  maritime  slave  trade  the  right  to  visit,  search,  anc 
seize  vessels  under  500  tons  burden  has  been  conceded 
by  the  signatory  Powers  within  a  defined  zone,  which 
embraces  the  waters  of  the  East  Coast.  Turkey  and  Per¬ 
sia  are  among  these  contracting  Powers,  and  they  have 
pledged  themselves  to  prohibit  the  importation  of  slaves 

_ “their  transit,  exit,  as  well  as  trade  therein.  .  Special 

restrictions  on  the  traffic  in  alcoholic  liquors  are  imposed, 
their  introduction  being  forbidden  to  the  districts  where, 
for  any  cause,  they  are  not  already  in  use,  and  customs 
duties  being  prescribed  in  those  regions  in  which  such 

liquors  have  been  imported.  .  .  .  . 

All  this  aims  to  build  up  a  great  civilization  which,  it 
it  is  successful,  while  it  will  make  the  white  man  the 
leader  of  the  black  man  for  the  next  hundred  years,  will 
do  that  other  grand  thing  spoken  of  by  Victor  Hugo 
when  he  said,  “in  the  nineteenth  century  the  white 
man  has  made  a  man  out  of  the  black,  and  in  the  twen¬ 
tieth  century  Europe  will  make  a  world  out  of  Africa. 

Nor  is  that  all.  “We  are  at  present .  assisting  at  a 
unique  spectacle  in  history,  the  actual  division  of  a  con¬ 
tinent  scarcely  known  by  the  civilized  nations  of  Europe. 
Thus  reads  a  document  lately  issued  by  the  new  French 
Committee  on  African  affairs.  It  is  a  long  story,  already 
possibly  not  a  very  honorable  one — this  of  the  so-called 
partition  of  Africa;  yet  it  is,  the  London  Times  says,  so 
far  an  accomplished  fact  that  it  is  possible  to  take  stock 
of  the  share  which  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  each,  with  some 
approach  to  accuracy.” 

The  “Mouvement  Geographique”  some  while  since, 
worked  out  the  problem  of  the  European  geographical 
extension  in  Africa,  in  a  series  of  tables  which  are  the 
clearest  presentation  of  this  progress  which  has.  fallen 
under  our  eye.  It  is  astounding  to  note  this  projection 
of  Europe  on  Africa  within  fourteen  years;  or,  since  1876, 
the  year  of  the  Brussels  Conference,  from  which  the 


8 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


scramble  may  be  said  to  date.  The  following1  will  mark 
this  extension  in  square  miles. 

Portugal,  in  1876,  612,217:  in  1890,  774,993.  Spain, 
in  1876,  3,500;  in  1890,  210,000.  France,  in  1876,  283,450; 
in  1890,  2,310,248.  Germany,  in  1874,  none;  in  1890, 
L°35 >72°*  Congo  Free  State,  in  1890,  1,000,000.  Italy, 
in  1876,  none;  in  1890,  360,000.  Great  Britain,  in  1876, 
279P^5;  in  1890,  1,909,446.  Total,  in  1876,  1,178,332;  in 
1890,  7,590,496.  If  to  this  we  add  the  areas  of  Egypt  and 
the  Egyptian  Soudan,  of  Tripoli,  Morocco,  the  independ¬ 
ent  Central  Soudan  States,  the  Transvaal  and  Orange 
Free  States,  and  patches  elsewhere  not  yet  ensphered,  it 
will  probably  be  found  that  of  the  11,900,000  square  miles 
of  Africa,  not  more  than  2,500,000  remains  to  be 
scrambled  for. 

But  here  is  vast  responsibility  on  the  Christians  of 
Europe,  and  every  one  of  these  Christian  Powers  throws 
wide  open  the  door  to  the  missionary,  and  affords  the 
utmost  protection  possible  to  them.  Thus  the  “king¬ 
dom1’  of  God  extends,  so  far  as  the  political  “sphere” 
goes,  in  giving  Africa  to  Christ. 

And  now  come  the  railroad  schemes  for  supplement¬ 
ing  the  river  highways,  and  the  French  Government 
voted  three-and-a-half  million  francs  for  a  railway  from 
the  Senegal  River  to  the  head-waters  of  the  Niger,  and 
the  Portuguese  Cortes  entertains  a  bill  for  building  a  rail¬ 
road  from  Loando  inland  into  Angola,  with  guaranteed 
interest  at  six  per  cent,  for  the  Government,  and  now  a 
railway  from  Vivi,  near  the  head  of  steam  navigation  on 
the  Congo,  from  the  ocean  to  Stanley  Pool,  to  avoid  the 
rapids  of  the  lower  portion  of  the  river  is  being  rapidly 
constructed,  the  most  difficult  portion  being  pushed  to 
completion.  It  is  even  probable  that  of  the  vast  sums 
from  King  Leopold’s  private  fortune  in  Africa,  half  a 
million  dollars  annually  shall  be  spent  in  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  such  a  railway.  James  Wilkinson  of  Glasgow,  is 
reported  to  be  willing  to  bear  the  expense  of  constructing 
a  railway  over  the  only  seventy  miles  necessary  to  make 
complete  the  connection  between  Lake  Nyassa  and  the 
sea. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


9 


While  the  International  Society  of  Exploration,  with 
the  King  of  Belgium  at  its  head,  proposes  to  open  up  a 
trade  highway  from  Loando  to  Zanzibar — from  west  to 
east  across  the  continent — it  is  also  proposed  that  branch 
societies  shall  mark  out  and  open  up  cross  paths  to  the 
central  highway,  so  as  to  spread  a  net  work  of  routes 
over  the  interior  to  the  coasts,  the  English  to  push  a  line 
northward  from  their  recently  acquired  Transvaal  across 
the  Zambesi  River  on  to  the  south  of  Lake  Tanganyika, 
the  French  to  start  from  Algeria  across  the  Sahara,  the 
Germans  to  advance  through  Abyssinia,  and  the  Italians 
from  the  Galla  country,  south  from  the  Red  Sea. 

The  submarine  cable  is  laid  to  connect  England  with 
the  British  colonies  all  along  the  west  coast  to  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  and  the  Portuguese  have  a  line  under 
contract  from  Senegal  to  St.  Thomas. 

We  have  said  nothing  of  the  open  door  through  the 
strong  Christian  governments  growing  up  in  South 
Africa,  along  the  west  coast,  and  in  Madagascar — “An 
island,”  you  say,  but  an  island  that  would  stretch  from 
Maine  to  Florida  on  our  Atlantic  coast.  We  have  said 
nothing  of  nominally  Christian  Abyssinia,  Algiers  and 
Tunis,  with  their  railroads,  and  within  easy  reach  of  the 
Christian  evangelism  of  London  and  Basle. 

Is  there  not  an  open  door  of  language  and  initial  liter¬ 
ature  and  Christian  labor?  The  English  language  is 
spoken  a  hundred  miles  inland  from  the  coast,  almost  all 
round  the  continent.  And  the  missionaries  mainly  with 
a  few  scientists  and  merchants,  have  enabled  Mr.  Cust  to 
catalogue  four-hundred  and  thirty-eight  languages,  and 
one-hundred  and  fifty-three  dialects,  after  throwing  out 
everyone  if  he  could  not  indicate  by  the  map  wheie  it  is 
spoken.  He  at  least  knew  how  to  group  them  all— ten 
Semitic;  twenty-nine  Hamitic;  seventeen  Nuba  Fulah; 
one  hundred  and  ninety-five  negro;  one  hundred  and 
sixty-eight  Banto;  nineteen  Bushman-Hottentot. 

Take  it  all  in  all,  here  is  a  new  world  thrown  up  for 
the  conquest  of  Christian  civilization.  In  the  Congo 
Valley  alone  is  a  highway  cast  up  for  the  evangelization 


10 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  AFRICA. 


of  a  population  equal  to  that  of  the  United  States. 
Northern  Africa,  including  the  Soudan,  which  of  itself  is 
well  nigh  equal  in  extent  to  the  Indian  Empire,  or, 
roughly  equal  to  the  United  States  east  of  the  Missis¬ 
sippi,  is  to  be  conquered  from  a  rude  form  of  Islam,  but 
the  “richest  tenth-part  of  Africa/’  the  valley  of  the  Congo, 
is  to  be  reclaimed  from  simple,  unlettered  fetishism. 
Think  of  it!  Stanley  took  999  days  to  travel  7,000  miles 
across  the  Continent  of  Africa,  and  never  saw  the  face 
of  a  Christian,  nor  of  a  man  who  had  had  the  opportunity 
to  become  one.  Yet  he  saw  single  tribes  numbering  a 
hundred-and-fifty  thousand,  and  moved  amongst  a  popu¬ 
lation  of  fifty  millions! 

The  whole  continent  offers  a  work  challenging  the 
enterprise,  the  power  for  combination  and  administration 
of  the  aggregated  Christian  intelligence  of  the  last  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  East,  west,  north  and 
south,  the  door  stands  wide  open. 

Mr.  Stanley  tells  a  story  about  Frank  Pocock’s  sing¬ 
ing.  Frank  was  the  English  boy  who  was  with  him. 
Frank  and  Stanley  were  the  only  white  men  ever  seen  at 
the  spot  named.  It  was  exactly  on  the  Equator  at  250 
east  longitude.  If  one  place  could  be  more  than  another 
“the  heart  of  Africa”  it  was  this.  Frank  sang  we  have 
said;  sang,  we  now  say  as  the  advance  courier  of  mer¬ 
chant  and  missionary;  sang,  the  representative  of  all 
Christendom.  It  was  a  John  Baptist  cry  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness — that  wilderness  of  Africa,  the  densest  moral  wilder¬ 
ness  of  the  world,  the  blackest  part  of  heathen  Africa. 
Frank  sang  several  songs.  Mr.  Stanley  thought  them 
not  cheery  enough  for  his  men.  Then  Frank  Pocock 
sang  again.  This  time  not  for  himself,  nor  for  Stanley, 
but  for  you  and  for  me,  for  all  saints  of  all  lands;  for  all 
the  battered  and  bannered  hosts  of  Christ  ;  sang  what  all 
others  will  sing  all  along  the  Congo,  from  “salt  sea  to 
salt  sea,”  over  that  continent;  Frank  sang: 

“Onward  Christian  soldier, 

Marching  as  to  war, 

With  the  cross  of  Jesus 
Going  on  before.” 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPANo 


Thirty  and  more  millions  of  people,  in  less  than  thiity 
years,  have,  in  the  Empire  of  Japan,  undergone  the  great¬ 
est  possible  of  revolutions  in  matters  of  government, 
commerce,  education,  religion,  the  army  and  nav) , 
material  and  social  science,  systems  of  finance,  religion 
and — well  everything  but  morals. 

A  rough  historical  draft  of  the  Empire  of  Japan  may 
be  made  thus: — Theoretically,  the  government  was  orig¬ 
inally  presided  over  by  the  gods.  About  700  b.  c.  these 
delegated  their  prerogative  to  a  royal  race  of  godmem 
These  received  various  titles,  amongst  which  was  that  of 
Mikado.  The  Mikado  was  ruler  of  church  and  state. 
He  was  a  born  pope,  holy,  infallible,  too  sacred  to  be 
allowed  to  touch  the  ground,  theoretically  never  even 
paring  his  nails,  nor  cutting  the  hair  of  his  head  or 

beard. 

But  even  this  royal  line  of  incarnate  gods  became 
involved  in  trouble,  by  that  cancer  of  all  loyalty,  the 
order  of  inheritance,  and  a  military  power  was  sum¬ 
moned  to  support  the  claim  of  the  god-king  on  the  Jap¬ 
anese  throne. 

About  seven  hundred  years  ago  the  military  power  of 
the  Japanese  government  chose  to  constitute  itself  the 
Executive  part  of  the  government,  and  to  assert  its  own 

permanence  in  this  relation. 

In  the  organization  of  this  Executive  Department,  the 
generalissimo  of  the  army  established,  subordinate  to 
himself,  a  great  nobility  on  a  feudal  basis.  The  esta  > 
lished  head  of  the  military  was  styled  the  Tycoon.  Nom¬ 
inally  he  was  subordinate,  even  from  his  own  standpoint, 
to  the  Mikado.  Everywhere,  and  on  all  hands,  the 
Mikado  was  acknowledged  as  the  Emperor.  Every¬ 
where,  and  on  all  hands,  the  Tycoon  was  known  to  be 
the  real  Emperor.  This  dual  government,  with  the 
Mikado  for  figure-head,  lasted  for  centuries.  In  the 


Kirosaki 


Mona 


Sakata] 


OKIO, 

^EDO/^ 


Nagoykr 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


13 


course  of  time  the  great  increase  and  the  greater  oppres¬ 
sions  of  the  military  class  prepared  the  people  for  its 
overthrow.  This  could  only  be  done  by  re-asserting  the 
long  dormant  but  rightful  power  of  the  Mikado.  The 
Tycoon  and  his  feudal  lords  became  divided,  and  both 
sought  relief  in  one  way,  both  determined  on  re-estab¬ 
lishing  the  direct  and  single  government  of  the  Mikado. 
Each  sought  to  identify  themselves  with  the  restored 
power  of  the  Mikado  in  the  government.  For  this  they 
contended,  but  at  last  both  laid  down  their  arms  at  the 
foot  of  the  Mikado’s  throne. 

All  this  occurred  just  at  the  juncture  when  western 
nations,  partly  by  over- awing  the  Japanese  government, 
induced  them  to  accept  foreign  commercial  intercourse, 
thus  introducing  to  their  notice  the  idea  of  the  most 
advanced  civilization.  The  Military  Commander  of  the 
Japanese  forces,  when  he  saw  the  walls  of  the  fort  crumb¬ 
ling  beneath  him,  under  the  fire  of  Commodore  Peiry  s 
guns,  while  he  paced  to  and  fro,  swore  by  all  the  gods 
of  Japan  that  he  would  find  out  how  it  was  done.  The 
whole  nation  presently  thereafter  resolved  to  find  out 
how  Europe  and  America  did  everything  else.  Western 
ideas  were  thus  thrust  upon  them,  at  a  time  when  the 
crusts  of  social  and  political  order  were  broken  up,  and 
when  the  remoulding  came,  new  men  helped  to  inaugu¬ 
rate  new  measures.  The  foreign  features  could  readily 
be  incorporated  as  a  part  of  the  new  regime.  The  result 
we  have  seen  in  part.  It  constitutes  a  most  astonishing 
fusion  of  ideas  and  social  and  political  forms,  of  periods 
separated  from  each  other  by  not  less  than  five  centuries. 
The  total  revolution,  which  has  made  a  new  Japan,  has 
taken  place  in  the  lifetime  of  a  single  generation,  and 
involved  changes  which  would  constitute  a  new  era  in 
any  country. 

A  people  whose  written  history  stretches  in  uninter¬ 
rupted  tale  over  2,550  years,  whose  first  ruler  of  the  still 
reigning  family  was  contemporary  with  Nebuchadnezzar, 
have,  in  thirty  years  seen  all  this  totally  revolutionized. 
Thirty  years  ago  it  was  like  a  medieval  Europe,  now  it 


14 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


is  modernized  in  almost  every  part.  Down  to  thirty 
years  ago,  with  a  longer  history  than  any  nation  in  the 
west,  it  had  gone  through  fewer  changes  than  the 
youngest  of  them.  Within  thirty-five  years,  this  nation, 
with  government  records  reaching  back  to  the  time  of 
Croesus,  has  publicly  and  deliberately,  in  the  face  of  the 
world,  changed  the  settled  habits  and  policy  of  centuries. 

The  Mikado  resumed  the  government  de  facto,  ban¬ 
ished  feudalism,  destroyed  numerous  principalities,  con¬ 
solidated  the  army  and  the  navy,  built  a  fleet  of  war  and 
transport  steamers,  ironclads  and  rams;  constructed  a 
stone  dry-dock,  with  capacity  equal  to  the  requirements 
of  the  largest  steamers;  built  machine  shops,  forges  and 
foundries,  railroads  and  telegraph  lines;  established 
schools  in  which  English,  French  and  German  are 
taught;  sent  more  than  a  thousand  of  their  country’s  best 
young  men  abroad,  to  study  the  laws,  languages,  habits, 
manufactures,  governments  and  religion  of  other  coun¬ 
tries;  totally  changed  the  system  of  internal  revenue; 
introduced  new  methods  of  agriculture,  mechanics,  and 
road  and  bridge  building;  and  seriously,  yea,  radically, 
modified  the  whole  position  of  woman  in  society.  Fol¬ 
lowing  this  came  the  peaceful  transition  from  absolute 
to  limited  monarchy  at  the  suggestion,  and  by  the  grant 
of  the  Mikado  himself,  and  with  it  a  Parliament  and  a 
Constitution. 

Japan,  from  a  state  of  absolute  exclusiveness  for  ages, 
has  swung  to  the  other  side  of  the  arc,  and  is  repre¬ 
sented  at  every  European  capital.  Then  “the  sea  was  its 
bulwark,  now  it  is  its  pathway.”  Then  taxes  were  col¬ 
lected  in  kind,  now  in  money.  Then  Buddhist  temples 
were  in  the  front,  now  Buddhism  is  disestablished,  their 
revenues  divided  to  the  State,  and  their  bells  “sold  for 
old  bronze.”  Then  there  was  feudal  tyranny,  now  there 
is  a  limited  monarchy.  Then  the  Emperor  was  absolutely 
invisible  because  of  his  sacred  character,  now  the  people 
are  not  even  obliged  to  prostrate  themselves  before  him 
on  the  streets.  A  dozen  newspapers  are  published  in 
Tokyo,  and  hundreds  in  the  provinces.  The  postal  sys- 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


15 


tem  of  Japan  is  now  embraced  in  the  “Postal  Union, 
and  letter-boxes  in  remote  villages  are  labelled  in  Eng¬ 
lish — “Post-office.” 

The  telegraph  runs  from  end  to  end  of  the  Empire, 
and  the  national  holiday — every  fifth  day  has,  since 
1876,  been  substituted  by  the  official  adoption  of  Sunday 
as  a  day  of  rest.  The  calendar  of  the  civilized  world  was 
adopted  three  years  earlier  (1873),  that  year  becoming 
the  2,333rd  year  of  the  traditional  unbroken  reign  of 
the  Mikados.  Outcasts,  like  workers  in  leather,  have 
become  “citizens” ;  new  coinage  has  been  introduced , 
Englishmen  and  Americans  have  been  put  at  the  head 
of  the  Department  of  Public  Works,  the  Navy,  the  Impe¬ 
rial  College,  and  the  Department  of  Mines.  The  Depart¬ 
ment  of  Religion  in  1877  was  abolished  by  its  incorpora¬ 
tion  with  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  or  Home 
Office,  and  the  Shinto  priests  awarded  a  pension  to  cease 

after  twenty  years. 

The  literary  stir  is  surprising.  The.  Department  of  the 
Interior  licensed  publications  thus, — in  1881,  545  works 
on  political  subjects  against  .281  in  1880;  255 

works  on  law  in  1881  against  207  in  1.880;  25  on  modern 
political  economy  in  1881  against  15  ‘m  1880;  267  works 
on  medicine  in  1881  against  229  in  1880;  ethical  and 
moral  works  increased  in  1881  over  1880  from  32  to  93? 
historical  works  from  196  to  276,  practical  works  from 
491  to  556,  drawing  and  writing  from  127  to  339,  engi¬ 
neering  works  from  8  to  28,  books  on  commerce  from  70 
to  1 1 5.  In  two  years  415  newspapers  were  started,  161 
of  which  ceased,  one  only  being  prohibited  by  the  gov¬ 
ernment.  The  total  of  works  published  in  1881  was  4,910 
against  3,792  in  1880.  School-books  in  both  years  were 
nearly  half  as  numerous  as  all  others  put  together,  num¬ 
bering  707  in  1880  and  704  in  1881. 

Into  all  this  great  change  and  stir,  Christian  thought 
and  Christian  influence  entered  as  a  part,  and  necessaiy 
part,  of  the  regime,  and  the  Christian  missionary  became 
everywhere  in  demand  as  a  teacher,  and  Christian  senti¬ 
ment  exerts  great  influence  on  the  government.  Die 


i6 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


foreign  missionary  was  the  government  professor  in  the 
Imperial  College  and  the  normal  schools,  at  the  very 
juncture  when  that  government  sent  out  the  edict  of 
compulsory  education  of  every  boy  and  girl  in  the  Em¬ 
pire. 

In  1880  the  report  of  the  Educational  Department 
showed  a  school  population  in  Japan  of  five  millions 
between  the  ages  of  six  and  twenty-four  years.  Two 
millions  of  these  were  enrolled  on  the  school  registers, 
and  the  average  daily  attendance  was  a  million  and  a 
half,  of  whom  6,000  were  in  the  middle  schools,  7,700 
in  the  normal  schools,  and  6,700  at  foreign  language 
schools,  and  the  total  gain  of  scholars  over  the  year 
before  was  two  hundred  thousand. 

Here,  then,  is  a  great  system  of  education,  not  only  of 
which  the  missionary  force  may  avail  itself,  but  which  it 
has  had  the  opportunity  to  largely  mold.  Here  is  a 
literary  people,  and  the  missionary  is  on  hand  with  his 
Christian  literature  which  he  sells  in  vast  quantities 
unmolested,  with  all  the  edicts  against  Christianity  unre¬ 
pealed. 

The  government  has  materially  modified  its  official 
attitude  toward  Christianity.  Everywhere  when  the  mis¬ 
sionaries  first  sought  to  introduce  Christianity,  they 
stood  face  to  face  with  the  ancient  edict — now  nearly  250 
years  old — which  reads : — “So  long  as  the  sun  shall  warm 
the  earth,  let  no  Christian  be  so  bold  as  to  come  to 
lapan;  and  let  all  know  that  the  King  of  Spain  himself, 
or  the  Christian  God,  or  the  great  God  of  all,  if  he  vio¬ 
late  this  command,  shall  pay  for  it  with  his  head.” 

This  was  supplemented  in  1868  by  new  proclamations. 
Mr.  Griffis  in  his  Mikado’s  Empire  translates  them  thus: 

Board  No.  I— Law. 

The  evil  sect  called  Christians  is  strictly  prohibited.  Suspicious  persons  shall  be 
reported  to  the  proper  officers,  and  rewards  will  be  given. 

Dai  Jo  Kuan. 

Fourth  year  Kei-oy  Third  month. 

Board  No.  Ill — Law. 

Human  beings  must  carefully  practice  the  principles  of  the  five  social  relations. 
Charity  must  be  shown  to  widowers,  widows,  orphans,  the  childless  and  sick. 
There  must  be  no  such  crimes  as  murder,  arson  or  robbery. 

Fourth  year  Kei-a ,  Third  month.  Dai  Jo  Kuan. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


17 


And  a  few  months  afterwards  the  following  appeared: 

“  With  respect  to  the  Christian  sect,  the  existing  prohibition  must  be  strictly 
observed.” 

11  Evil  sects  are  strictly  prohibited.” 

In  1873  all  these  public  notices  were  withdrawn.  This 
did  not  cancel  them  however,  no  more  than  it  did  those 
against  murder,  &c.,  which  were  also  removed, -yet  tol¬ 
eration  has  gradually  increased  since  their  removal. 

A  direct  advantage  has  also  come  from  the  adoption 
of  the  seventh  instead  of  the  fifth  day  as  the  national 
holiday,  as  the  native  evangelists  and  missionaries  thus 
have  for  their  Sunday  labor  a  day  that  accords  with  the 
general  public  leisure.  This  advantage  is  held  to  be 
incalculable. 

The  press  being  practically  free,  and  public  discussion 
unrestrained,  public  opinion  seems  to  be  growing  more 
and  more  favorable  to  measures  which  will  facilitate 
Christian  work.  The  press  has  again  and  again  openly 
advocated  toleration.  One  editorial,  in  a  Japanese  news¬ 
paper  ran  thus: 

“The  faith  of  people  can  only  be  formed  by  their 
hearts,  and  it  seems  therefore  improper  for  the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  dictate  to  them  which  form  of  faith  is  right,  and 
which  wrong,  and  what  they  shall  do  and  what  they  shall 
not  do  on  this  subject.  It  would  be  better  for  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  to  permit  the  people  to  worship  God  as  they 
please,  provided  that  in  doing  so  they  do  not  violate  the 
laws  of  their  country.  This,  therefore,  is  a  thing  to  which 
our  rulers  ought  to  give  the  greatest  consideration.  Ye 
statesmen,  what  are  your  views?” 

The  same  editor  plead  for  Christianity  as  follows: — 

“The  entrance  of  Christianity  is  the  natural  outcome 
of  time.  There  is  nothing  better  than  Christianity  to 
aid  in  the  advancement  of  the  world,  but  there  are  sects 
which  are  injurious,  as  well  as  sects  that  are  beneficial. 
The  best  mode,  therefore,  of  advancing  our  country  is  to 
introduce  the  most  free  and  enlightened  form  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  and  have  it  diffused  among  our  people.” 

But  Japan  never  needed  the  presence  and  power  and 


i8 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  JAPAN. 


guidance  of  the  Christian  missionary  more  than  now 
Darwinism  flourishes  in  Japan.  Japanese  flock  to  Ger¬ 
many  as  well  as  to  the  divinity  schools  of  America. 
French  Romanists,  Greek  Catholics  from  Russia,  Uni¬ 
tarians,  Universalists,  infidels,  and  heterodox  forms  of 
the  Christian  teaching  of  every  shade,  are  present  among 
them.  They  never  needed  the  earnest  prayers  and  wise 
counsel,  as  well  as  financial  resources  of  the  West  more 
than  they  do  at  this  hour.  But  they  will  have  strong 
leaders,  or  none,  from  afar. 

The  look  of  things  for  years  has  been  that  it  is  possible 
that  Japan  may  become  Christian  by  royal  decree,  in  a 
day.  The  great  statesman,  Fukuzawa,  intimated  this  as 
a  necessary  political  and  civilizing  measure.  His  line 
of  argument  is  that  the  efficacy  of  so  called  International 
Laws  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  nations  adopting  or  recog¬ 
nizing  such  compact  have  the  same  customs  and  religion. 
Anti-Christian  countries  cannot  enter  into  this  compact. 
The  idea  of  equality,  too,  inheres  in  this^  International 
Law,  but  so  far  as  politics  is  concerned  the  idea  of  human 
equality  had  its  origin  in  Christianity.  *  *  Jesus  Christ 

at  thirty  years  of  age,  for  the  first  time  brought  to  light 
the  principle  of  equality  of  men  and  women,  noble  and 
serf.  He  traces  the  growth  and  spread  of  this  idea  till  it 
resulted  in  national  independence  in  America  and  negio 
emancipation.  Fie  says  all  Christian  nations  lest  on 
Sunday,  and  that  drafts  of  laws  of  Congress  may  be  con¬ 
sidered’ as  sanctioned  and  signed  by  the  President  if 
such  drafts  are  not  returned  by  the  President  to  Con¬ 
gress  within  ten  days,  from  which  ten  days,  however, 
Sundays  are  excluded.  He  does  not  base  his  argument 
on  the  excellence  or  necessity  of  Christianity  as  a  relig¬ 
ion  but  says  it  is  an  essential  part  of  the  western  civiliza¬ 
tion  which  they  are  compelled  to  adopt  or  retire  from  the 
comity  of  nations.  Christianity  is  not  only  the  root  of  the 
advanced  civilization  of  the  age,  but  it  is  inseparable  from 
it  It  is  impossible  to  accept  Christian  civilization  with¬ 
out  accepting  Christianity  itself.  It  is  a  political  neces¬ 
sity  to  Japan. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  KOREA. 


19 


We  have  left  ourselves  no  room  to  show  that  Japan  is 
ripe  for  the  Christian  religion  as  no  other,  or  in  a  sense 

that  no  other  is  011  the  globe*  _ 

Japan  has  been  greatly  elated  by  its  triumph  m  hand¬ 
ling  western  naval  ships  in  an  unequal  contest  with  those 
of  China  and  is  pushing  her  new  processes  into  little  For¬ 
mosa.  ;  I  i  - 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  KOREA. 


Korea,  ‘The  Hermit  Nation,”  has  a  population  of  ten 
millions.  For  400  years  she  was  isolated  from  the  rest 
of  the  world,  except  as  hostilities  now  and  again  broke 
the  monotony.  “In  the  fifth  century  Korea  gave  religion 
and  letters  and  art  to  japan.  Woven  goods,  brocades 
and  silk  fabrics  of  great  variety,  cut  and  polished  jewels, 
armor  inlaid  with  silver  and  gold,  bronze  utensils  of 
every  sort,  vases,  censers  and  chandeliers,  bronze  bells 
and  "images,  flags,  trumpets,  drums,  and  saddles,  with 
pottery  of  exquisite  shapes  and  workmanship,  were  sent 
not  merely  by  ships,  but  by  fleets  from  Korea  to  Japan. 
Korean  history  runs  backward  through  three  thousand 
vears,  the  dynasty  originally  being  affiliated  with  that 
of  the  Chow  dynasty  of  China  in  1122  B.  C.  With  vary¬ 
ing  fortune  they  have  continued  now  independent  for 
centuries,  now  as  a  province  of  China,  and  anon  with  a 
King  of  their  own,  through  other  great  periods,  dynasty 
succeeding  dynasty,  down  to  1864,  when  the  present 
King,  then  a  boy  of  twelve  summers,  became  Kegent. 

In  May,  1882,  a  treaty  was  made  between  the  United 
States  and  Korea,  opening  Korea  to  the  Americans; 
later  Great  Britain  and  Germany  formed  like  treaty  rela- 

tion.  •  r 

Korea  is  a  small  country  about  double  the  size  oi 

Ohio,  with  a  population  variously  estimated,  but  which 
we  may  put  down  at  twelve  millions.  It  has  a  coast  line 


20 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  KOREA. 


of  1, 800  miles,  though  the  tongue  of  land  is  only  about 
400  miles  long.  It  numbers  among  its  mineral  products, 
coal,  iron,  lead,  tin,  silver  and  gold.  It  pays  tribute  to 
China  and  Japan,  but  beyond  that,  is  not  controlled  by 
them.  Its  existing  records  reach  back  for  3,000  years. 
Its  trustworthy  history  begins  about  A.  D.  200.  In  1876, 
the  present  progressive  King  entered  into  treaty  rela¬ 
tions  with  Japan,  opening  to  them  three  Korean  ports. 
The  land  is  owned  by  the  people,  and  held  for  them  by 
the  King,  and  rented  to  the  people,  which  takes  the  place 
of  all  other  taxes.  The  Capital,  Seoul,  contains  about 
35,000  houses  and  a  population  of  from  150  to  200  thou¬ 
sand. 

In  religion,  Korea  has  followed  China  and  Japan  from 
an  original  Nature  worship  to  the  adoption  of  Buddhism, 
Confucianism  and  Romanism.  Of  late  years  there  has 
exhibited  a  strong  tendency  to  emphasize  the  primitive 
Nature  worship.  Rev.  J.  Ross  somewhile  since  gave  a 
list  in  the  “Chinese  Recorder”  of  over  twenty  gods  which 
are  popularly  worshipped  in  Korea;  gods  of  the  road, 
gods  of  the  mountains  who  protect  from  tigers,  gods  of 
the  rain  and  of  war,  gods  of  the  kitchen,  the  Virgin 
Mary,  and  ancestral  tablets  are  enumerated. 

Christianity  was  introduced  into  Korea  through  some 
Jesuit  books  from  Peking,  in  1777.  The  first  Korean 
convert  was  baptized  in  1783.  The  new  faith  spread 
rapidly,  but  here,  as  elsewhere,  Jesuit  political  intrigue 
led  to  revolt  against  them,  and  sixty  years  of  persecu¬ 
tion  followed  in  which  thousands  of  Korean  converts 
died  within  this  century  with  the  names  of  Jesus  and 
Mary  on  their  lips.  Other  thousands  apostatized;  but 
some  estimate  that  there  are  still  thousands  of  secret  dis¬ 
ciples  of  Christ  in  the  land. 

A  missionary  of  the  Netherlands  Society  reached 
Korea  in  1832  and  remained  one  month,  distributing 
tracts  and  religious  books.  The  missionaries  of  the 
Presbyterian  Church  of  Ireland,  living  in  China  on  the 
borders  of  Korea,  exerted  the  first  of  the  more  modern 
Protestant  influences  in  Korea,  through  Koreans  that 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


21 


came  over  to  their  mission  fields  for  trading  purposes. 
On  the  seaboard  modern  missionary  influences  flowed 
to  Korea  from  Japan.  The  Methodists  and  Presbyter¬ 
ians  began  missionary  work  in  Seoul  in  1884.  A  great 
interest  was  felt  in  this  movement  because  “The  Her¬ 
mit  Nation”  was  the  only  country  besides  Thibet  abso¬ 
lutely  closed  to  the  Gospel. 

It  is  affirmed  that  the  transfer  of  Korea  from  the  quasi¬ 
sovereignty  of  China,  to  that  of  Japan,  has  not  hindered 
but  furthered  the  prosperity  of  missions  in  Korea  and 
thrown  far  wider  open  the  door  of  opportunity. 


TIME  OPEN  DOOR  EN  ENOEAo 


Asia  is  the  most  populous  of  continents  but  this  popu¬ 
lation  is  very  unequally  distributed.  Taking  the  whole 
area,  Europe  has  a  denser  population  proportionately 
than  has  Asia.  Asia  counts  but  46  to  the  square  mile 
while  Europe  averages  90  to  the  square  mile. 

But  four  countries  of  Asia,  India,  Java,  China  and 
Japan,  having  together  not  more  than  five-sixths  of  the 
area,  have  double  the  population  of  Europe. 

The  “Open  Door”  in  India  is  so  wide  open  it  were 
difficult  to  describe  the  opportunity,  the  duty  or  the 
promise.  Every  increase  in  definite  knowledge  concern¬ 
ing  the  relative  populations  of  China  and  India  has  sent 
that  of  China  down  and  that  of  India  up,  as  compared 
with  the  previous  popular  estimate  of  them.  China  was 
presumed  to  have  a  population  of  over  four-hundred  mil¬ 
lions  and  India  to  have  a  population  of  less  than  two 
hundred  millions.  Fuller  acquaintance  with  China  has 
made  some  who  were  in  position  to  form  a  judgment 
place  the  population  of  China  as  low  as  two  hundred  mil¬ 
lions,  while  the  definite  information  acquired  through 
the  Government  census  has  shown  India  to  be  populated 
by  two  hundred  and  eighty-nine  millions  of  souls. 

The  imagination  is  paralyzed  in  the  effort  to  compi  e- 


Gfc.Nc.RAL  IVlAP  OF  INDIA. 


In-* 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


23 


bend  such  a  numerical  mass.  Put  the  entire  population 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere  alongside  of  it,  and  it  con¬ 
stitutes  but  one-third  as  many;  while  France  contains 
but  one-seventh  as  many  souls  as  are  crowded  into  that 
vast  peninsula — a  peninsula  which  constitutes  one-sixth 
of  the  entire  territory  of  the  British  Empire.  Of  this 
vast  mass,  allowing  a  generation  to  pass  away  every 
third  of  a  century,  twenty  thousand  die  each  day,  over 
eight  hundred  each  hour,  fifteen  every  minute,  one  every 
four  seconds  of  the  year.  Day  and  night,  summer  and 
winter,  the  ceaseless  caravan  moves  to  the  “pale  realms 
of  shade.” 

These  for  whom  Christ  died  are  born,  live  and  die 
without  hope  in  Him.  Ask  them  whither  they  go,  what 
follows  on  this  life,  and  the  refrain  set  in  the  minor 
chord  of  the  heart’s  sadness  will  be:  “What  do  we  know 
about  that?” 

Through  thirty  centuries  this  people  have  had  no  bet¬ 
ter  religious  notions  than  those  of  to-day.  dhey  are 
not  so  much  burdened  with  a  sense  of  sin  as  they  are 
with  a  sense  of  indescribable  weariness.  They  long  less 
for  pardon  or  purity  than  western  nations,  but  they  are 
crying  pitifully,  crying  dike  a  child  in  the  night,’  for  rest. 
Their  hearts  are  overburdened  and  they  want  relief. 
Their  definition  of  soul  might  well  be  that  of  Laura 
Bridgman,  as  that  “which  aches  so.”  They  are  without 
Christ  and  without  hope  in  the  world. 

The  population  of  India  may  be  roughly  classified  as 
(1)  Hindus.  (2)  Aboriginal  tribes.  (3)  Muhammadans. 
(4)  Miscellaneous  sects  as  Buddhists,  Jains,  Parsis,  Sikhs. 

The  Hindus  have  been  put  down  at  about  208  millions. 
The  Muhammadans  number  something  over  57  mil¬ 
lions.  The  miscellaneous  groups  with  the  Christians 
make  up  the  remainder. 

The  Aboriginal  tribes,  such  as  the  Gonds,  Konds, 
Santals  and  Hill  tribes  are  not  Hindus.  A  great  many 
of  them  may  be  so  counted  because  they  have  been  so 
largely  impressed  by  Hinduism,  but  probably  20  mil¬ 
lions  of  them  cannot  be  said  to  be  even  Hinduized. 


24 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


Nor  is  it  fair  to  represent  that  all  the  millions  of  so- 
called  Hindus  should  be  counted  such  without  discrimi¬ 
nation;  because  there  are  multitudes  of  these  who  are 
out-casted.  They  do  not  belong  to  the  Hindu  social  or 
religious  order.  They  are  mere  hangers-on  to  the  body 
politic,  but  religiously  have  no  privileges,  nor  socially, 
any  standing.  They  are  “without  the  pale,’’  wholly  sep¬ 
arated  from  the  community,  and  eternally  and  necessarily 
so.  So  that  we  have  a  society  constructed  in  three 
strata,  (i)  Hindus  within  the  general  classification  of 
the  four  castes,  which  are  sub-divided  into  perhaps  thou¬ 
sands  of  separate  classes  according  to  circumstances.  (2) 
The  depressed  classes,  low  castes,  or  non-caste,  and  out- 
caste  populations  within  the  Hindu  area — say  50  mil¬ 
lions.  (3)  The  Aboriginal  tribes  who  have  refused  amal¬ 
gamation  or  agglutination  with  the  Hindu  community. 

The  opportunities  which  are  afforded  to  Christian 
nations  to  carry  to  such  a  multitude  that  which  they 
most  need  are  positively  without  a  parallel  in  human 
history. 

There  is  the  strong  protection  of  person  and  property, 
of  the  missionary  and  his  disciples  throughout  the  entire 
Empire  of  India.  So  far  as  government  goes — there  is 
nowhere  on  this  globe — it  is  doubtful  if  there  ever  has 
elsewhere  been  in  all  history — so  great  a  multitude  of 
people,  under  one  political  power,  allowed  to  follow  so 
freely  and  fully  their  personal  religious  convictions  with¬ 
out  molestation  from  the  State  as  occurs  in  India.  Out¬ 
side  of  Great  Britain  there  is  not  a  nation  in  Europe 
which  accords  such  large  religious  freedom  to  its  sub¬ 
jects.  Here  then  is  nearly  one-fifth  of  the  population  of 
the  globe,  amongst  whom  the  missionary  may  go,  with 
the  greatest  security  to  himself  and  his  property,  and 
greatest  protection  to  his  work.  In  the  remotest  corner 
of  that  great  empire,  the  power  of  the  British  Govern¬ 
ment  is  felt  and  respected,  so,  that,  to  use  an  oriental 
hyperbole,  one  may  go  along  “the  highway  tossing  up 
money  and  nobody  will  ask  him  how  many  teeth  he 

has  in  his  mouth.” 

* 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


25 


The  same  government  has  constructed  an  extensive 
network  of  railways,  so  that  the  remotest  part  of  this 
empire  is  speedily  and  cheaply  reached.  There  are  now  in 
operation  14,000  miles  of  railway,  and  hundreds  of  miles 
more  being  constructed.  The  telegraph  lines  in  India  are 
extended  over  2,000  miles,  and  the  cable  connects  India 
with  England,  with  China  and  with  Australia.  The  mail 
is  but  a  fortnight  between  London  and  Bombay,  and  the 
cheap  postal  system  enables  one  to  have  his  book  and 
letter  postal  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world, 
in  the  remotest  hamlet  of  the  Himalayas,  in  the  jungles, 
or  wherever  he  may  pitch  his  camp  or  moor  his  boat. 

Education  and  literary  facilities  are  multiform.  Eighty- 
five  colleges  of  law  and  medicine  and  art  were,  in  1890, 
educating  9,000  students,  and  66,500  educational  institu¬ 
tions  of  all  sorts  are  contributing  their  force  to  the  intel¬ 
lectual  activity  of  the  age.  Fifty-three  millions  of  chil¬ 
dren  are  awaiting  the  literature  which  may  be  newly 
molded  to  stimulate  and  form  their  minds.  Three  hun- 
dred-and-sixty  books  were  registered  in  the  Punjab 
alone  during  the  second  quarter  of  the  year  1884.  Of 
these  six  were  English,  sixteen  Arabic,  one  hundred  and 
thirty-five  were  Hindi  and  Urdu,  and  the  remainder  bi¬ 
lingual.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  periodicals  were  reg¬ 
istered  in  the  same  period. 

The  people  have,  through  a  multitude  of  channels, 
learned  something  of  Christianity,  so  that  non-Christian 
communities,  recognizing  its  excellence  and  power,  as 
compared  with  the  other  systems  of  religion  about  them, 
are  pervaded  with  the  conviction  that  Christianity  is  des¬ 
tined  to  become  the  religion  of  India.  No  one  has  ever 
attempted  to  explain  the  occasion  of  this  wide-spread 
notion.  Whether  it  arises  from  an  intuitive  perception 
of  the  worth  of  the  Christian  faith,  or  is  associated  with 
the  idea  that  the  British  Government,  being  powerful 
enough  to  subdue  all  India,  will  naturally  occasion  the 
people  to  adopt  the  Christian  religion,  or,  whether  with¬ 
out  reasoning  at  all  about  it,  this  notion  has  obtained  as 
a  sort  of  prophetic  impulse,  or  whether  the  Spirit  of  God 


26 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


has  directly  put  the  thought  into  the  minds  of  men  and 
communities  widely  separated  from  each  other  as  a  fore¬ 
shadowing  of  His  purpose,  and  as  a  providential  prepa¬ 
ration  for  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel — be  all  this  as 
it  may,  the  one  great  important  fact  and  factor  remains 
to  the  Evangelical  force  of  Christendom,  that  millions  of 
these  people  expect  Christianity  to  prevail  in  the  land. 

We  have  the  results  already  reached  as  a  basis  for 
future  operations,  and  as  furnishing  the  very  agency 
needed  for  further  advance.  Sir  William  Muir  has 
forcibly  said:  ‘Thousands  have  been  brought  over,  and 
in  an  ever-increasing  ratio  converts  are  being  brought 
to  Christianity.  And  these  are  not  shams  nor  paper 
converts,  but  g*ood  and  honest  Christians,  and  many  of 
a  high  standard/’ 

Sir  Herbert  Edwards  said  as  long  ago  as  1866:  “God 
is  forming  a  new  nation  in  India.  While  the  Hindus  are 
busy  pulling  down  their  own  religion,  the  Christian 
Church  is  rising  above  the  horizon.  Every  other  faith 
in  India  is  decaying.  Christianity  alone  is  beginning  to 
run  its  course.  I  believe  if  the  English  were  driven  out 
of  India  to-day  Christianity  would  remain  and  triumph.” 

The  native  Protestant  Christian  population  of  India 
has  leaped  from  27,000  in  1830  to  103,000  in  1850,  to 
213,009  in  i860,  318,000  in  1878  and  to  528,500  in  1880, 
and  to  939,000  in  1891. 

Studying  the  ratio  of  growth  as  herein  stated,  in  the 
last  three  decades  it  shows  an  increase  of  fifty-three  per 
cent,  from  1851  to  1861;  an  increase  of  sixty-one  per 
cent,  from  1861  to  1871,  and  a  leap  to  eighty-six  per 
cent,  of  increase  between  1871  and  1881,  and  22  per  cent, 
above  that  by  1891. 

The  number  of  communicants  nearly  doubled  between 
1851  and  1861,  it  more  than  doubled  between  1861  and 
1871,  and  it  more  than  doubled  again  between  1871  and 
1881,  and  added  50  per  cent,  on  that  by  1891. 

The  open  door  to  the  Homes  of  India  affords  the  most 
unexampled  opportunity  suddenly  thrust  upon  Christian 
philanthropy.  There  is  nothing  equal  to  this  in  all  the 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


2  7 


past  history  of  the  Church.  This  is  not  seen  so  much  in 
the  increase  of  female  pupils  from  31,370  in  1871  to 
65,761  in  1881,  and  to  200,000  in  1891,  as  in  the  sudden 
development  of  the  opportunity  to  have  a  hundred  times 
as  many  within  the  next  decade.  These  opportunities  to 
reach  the  women  with  the  Gospel  are  now  wide-spread. 
Fifteen  years  ago  Bengal  had  more  zenana  pupils  than 
all  the  rest  of  India  put  together.  Now  the  Northwest 
Provinces  have  the  largest  number  of  this  class  of  pupils. 

The  vast  female  population  of  India,  possibly  one  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty  millions  in  all,  has  received  a  heritage  of 
ignorance.  India’s  women  and  girls  have  been  kept  in 
illiteracy  for  a  thousand  years.  As  late  as  1881  only 
seventy  thousand  out  of  this  total  female  population 
of  over  a  hundred  millions  were  able  to  read  and  write. 
There  still  remains  128  millions  of  illiterate  females  in 
the  Empire.  But  the  whole  are  now  approachable  by  the 
women  of  Christendom.  No  class  of  this  female  popu¬ 
lation  more  need  help,  and  none  are  more  glad 
to  receive  it  than  the  widows.  Probably  one  in 
eight  of  the  entire  female  population  of  all  ages 
is  a  widow.  A  census  of  Calcutta  showed  there, 
58,000  wives,  and  55,000  widows.  There  are  in 
India,  according  to  the  census,  nearly  80,000  widows 
under  ten  years  of  age.  The  women  of  Christen¬ 
dom  have  learned  much  about  the  method  of  approach 
to  these  women,  and  the  call  for  workers  in  this  special 
department  is  imperative.  We  have  worked  from  the 
first  till  a  comparatively  recently  date,  having  access 
only  to  the  one-half  of  the  population,  and  that  half  hav¬ 
ing  the  weakest  religious  instincts.  Now  and  suddenly 
the  other  half — the  more  naturally  susceptible  and,  by 
odds,  the  part  of  the  population  most  potent  to 
mold  the  religious  thoughts  and  prejudices  of  the  youth 
of  the  land — is  thrown  open  as  an  approachable  and  an 
available  force  for  the  Christian  worker. 

The  native  Christian  community  is  rapidly  rising  into 
power  and  leadership.  Every  year  scores  of  native 
Christians  of  both  sexes  pass  the  Government  Teacher’s 


28 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  INDIA. 


certificate  examination  and  take  a  large  share  in  the 
education  of  the  masses  in  mission  and  in  Government, 
Municipal  and  other  schools,.  The  percentage  of  passes 
amongst  the  Christians  at  the  University’s  Examination 
in  1882-83,  was  45.4,  while  amongst  the  Brahmans  it  was 
35.4,  and  the  Mohammedans  and  others  were  still  lower. 

In  the  Northwest  Provinces  only  one  female  amongst 
the  Hindus  is  able  to  read  and  write  for  seventy-nine 
males,  amongst  the  Mohammedans  one  to  fifty-five, 
amongst  Christians  one  to  two!  !  It  is  easy  to  see  what 
an  available  power  this  Christian  female  educated  force 
may  become  in  the  land.  If  Christian  women  are  the 
most  highly  educated  women  of  the  land,  they  must 
rapidly  rise  to  prominence  and  power.  There  is  a  large 
force  of  these  women  already  at  the  command  of  the 
Christian  Church  for  broad  and  aggressive  evangelistic 
work  in  India. 

The  Medical  Missions  have  met  with  large  success. 
The  presses  are  pouring  out  millions  of  pages  of  Chris¬ 
tian  literature.  At  over  seven  hundred  principal  stations 
missions  are  being  operated.  Over  thirty-six  hundred 
clerical  and  lay  native  preachers  speaking  the  languages 
and  familiar  with  the  customs  are  already  leading  the 
native  church,  and  the  opportunity  to  co-operate  with 
these  forces  of  all  sorts  is  ours,  and  it  brings  with  it  cor¬ 
responding  obligations. 

There  are  vast  tracts  of  country  which  are  scarcely 
touched  at  all  by  Christian  evangelism.  Hyderabad,  a 
native  realm,  with  eleven  millions  of  inhabitants,  has 
only  a  few  workers,  and  thus  throughout  the  extent  of 
the  land  the  Christian  force  is  feeble  when  the  crisis  is 
so  imminent.  The  whole  native  mind  and  heart  and 
social  order  is  being  remolded,  and  we  have  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  greatly  shaping  it. 

Never  were  these  people  thrown  so  pleadingly  before 
the  Christian  world  as  now. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  EN  BURHA. 


Within  the  past  seventy-five  years  the  political  map 
of  Southeastern  Asia  has  materially  changed.  In  1820, 
the  Emperor  of  Burma  claimed  dominion  over  all  the 
tribes  of  Burma  proper,  as  well  as  over  Chittagong, 
Arakan,  and  the  Tenasserim  provinces,  including  a  large 
part  of  the  Malayan  Peninsula.  On  November  30th, 
1885,  Theebaw,  the  last  Emperor  of  Burma,  was  a  pris¬ 
oner  in  the  hands  of  the  English  army.  A  few  weeks 
later  the  Empire  of  Burma  was  annexed  to  British  India. 

Since  Lord  Dalhousie  annexed  Nagpore  without  even 
the  formality  of  a  proclamation,  but  by  simply  gazetting 
a  Commissioner,  nothing  so  strong  has  been  done  in 
Asia  as  the  annexation  of  Burma  by  the  Viceroy  through 
the  mere  notification  that  the  country,  its  boundaries  still 
undefined,  would  for  the  future  be  part  of  her  British 
Majesty’s  dominions.  Thus  in  substance  says  a  num¬ 
ber  of  the  Spectator.  It  is  now  more  true  than  ever,  that 
the  Viceroy  of  India  with  the  Emperor  of  China  governs 
half  the  human  race,  “and  has  to  find  time  for  break¬ 
fast.”  It  is  now  more  true  than  ever,  that  four  out  of 
six  of  the  great  river-systems  of  Asia,  the  Indus,  the 
Ganges,  the  Brahmaputra,  and  the  Irrawaddy,  run  from 
source  to  sea  within  the  British  dominions.  It  is  now 
more  true  than  ever,  that  British  commerce  through 
Burma  shall  be  felt  as  far  away  as  Pekin. 

What  all  this  means  for  Christian  evangelism  may  be 
only  hinted  at.  In  1782  Rev.  Father  Sangermano  wrote 
in  his  “Description  of  the  Burmese  Empire”: 

“I  suppose  there  is  not  in  the  whole  world  a  monarch 
so  despotic  as  the  Burmese  Emperor.  He  is  considered, 
by  himself  and  others,  absolute  lord  of  the  lives,  prop¬ 
erties,  and  personal  services  of  his  subjects;  confers  and 
takes  away  honor  and  rank;  and  without  any  process 
of  law  can  put  to  death  not  only  criminals  guilty  of  cap¬ 
ital  offences,  but  any  individual  who  happens  to  incur 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  BURMA. 


31 

his  displeasure,  *  *  he  considers  himself  entitled  to 

employ  his  subjects  in  any  work  or  service,  without  sal¬ 
ary  or  pay,  *  *  their  goods  likewise  and  even  their 

persons  are  reputed  his  property.” 

The  despotism  of  the  Burmese  monarchy  has  been  but 
little  modified  in  the  intervening  century,  and  we  may 
all  now  rejoice  for  the  opportunity  afforded  for  unre¬ 
stricted  evangelism  in  a  new  territory  of  ten  times  the 
productiveness  of  Ireland,  destined  doubtless  to  a  rapid 
development  in  its  resouces,  and  growth  in  its  popula¬ 
tion. 

Up  to  1826  the  districts  which  now  form  British  Bur¬ 
ma  were  under  the  Burman  dynasty.  Tenasserim  and 
Arracan  were  then  ceded  to  Britain,  and  in  1852  Pagu 
and  Martaban  were  added  to  the  concession.  In  1861 
the  population  of  British  Burma  did  not  exceed 
1,189,164.  Within  twenty  years  thereafter  the  popula¬ 
tion  tripled,  reaching  in  1882  3,736,771.  Part  of  this 
increase  was  from  India,  part  from  Upper  Burma  and 
the  Shan  States.  But  the  Karens,  which  are  so  largely 
Christianized,  are  increasing  most  rapidly. 

Burma  is  about  equal  in  area  to  New  England,  the 
Middle  States,  Ohio,  Indiana  and  Illinois  combined.  Its 
population  is  variously  estimated  at  from  eight  millions 
to  fifteen  millions.  Except  in  what  was  until  lately 
British  territory  no  census  has  ever  been  taken.  Immi¬ 
gration  has  largely  increased  the  population  of  the  ter¬ 
ritory  before  known  as  British  Burma. 

In  the  eight-and-a-half  years  preceding  1872  the  Bur- 
mans  increased  thirty-one  per  cent,  with  the  aid  of  immi¬ 
gration,  while  the  Karens,  without  immigration, 
increased  at  the  astonishing  rate  of  fifty-six  per  cent.  If 
this  increase  could  be  continued  for  another  generation, 
the  Karens  alone  would  number  upwards  of  three  mil¬ 
lions.  The  work  of  God  has  so  signally  prospered  among 
them,  that  they  must  come  to  be  a  great  evangelizing 
agency,  in  the  total  of  British  Burma  as  now  consti¬ 
tuted. 

Since  the  annexation  of  British  Burma  there  has 


32 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SIAM  AND  LAOS. 


been  a  marked  spread  of  Christianity.  Of  the  people  87 
per  cent,  are  Buddhists,  .038  are  nat  or  spirit  wor¬ 
shippers  and  .022  are  Christians.  The  Karens  were 
greatly  oppressed  under  the  Burman  dynasty,  but  the 
missionaries  have  had  large  success  among  them. . 

In  the  Government  Administration  Report  for  British 
Burma  (1880-81)  it  was  said:  “Foremost  in  this  work 
have  been  American  missionaries  of  the  Baptist  persua¬ 
sion.  .  .  .  There  are  now  attached  to  this  151  Chris¬ 

tian  parishes,  most  of  which  support  their  own  Karen 
pastor  and  their  own  parish  school  and  many  of  which 
subscribe  considerable  sums  in  money  and  kind  for  the 
furtherance  of  missionary  work  among  the  Karens,  and 
other  hill-races  beyond  the  British  border.  Christianity 
continues  to  spread  among  the  Karens  to  the  great 
advantage  of  the  commonwealth,  and  the  Christian 
Karen  communities  are  distinctly  more  industrious,  bet¬ 
ter  educated,  and  more  law-abiding  than  the  Burman 
and  Karen  villages.  The  Karen  race  and  the  British 
Government  owe  a  great  debt  to  the  American  mission¬ 
aries,  who  have  under  Providence  wrought  this  change 
among  the  Karens  of  Burma.” 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SIAM  AND  LAOS„ 


Siam  is  within  the  second  great  river  basin  of  the 
Indo-Chinese  Peninsula,  as  Burma  is  in  the  first.  .  The 
Capital  of  this  alluvial  plain  is  Bangkok,  “the  Venice  of 
the  Orient,”  with  a  larger  population  than  Madras  or 
Madrid,  Cairo  or  Brussels.  Siam  is  as  large  as  New 
England  and  all  the  Middle  States.  It  is  larger  than 
Japan,  and  its  population  equals  that  of  Persia,  or  Bur¬ 
ma,  Sweden  or  Belgium.  In  area  it  is  four  times  as 
large  as  the  State  of  New  York.  Until  1885  Siam  had 
two  Kings.  The  present  King  is  42  years  old  (1896)  and 
is  the  first  sovereign  who  ever  went  abroad.  In  1873 
the  custom  of  prostration  before  the  sovereign  was  abol- 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SIAM  AND  LAOS. 


33 


ished.  Politically  Siam  is  likely  to  retain  an  independent 
sovereignty. 

The  telegraph  connects  Siam  with  the  French  system 
through  Cochin  China,  and  the  British  system  through 
Tavoy.  The  posfoffice  delivers  letters  regularly  in  Bang¬ 
kok,  and  is  being  extended  through  the  country.  Eighty 
per  cent,  of  the  population  can  read.  There  is  no  caste 
nor  hereditary  priesthood.  Large  business  houses  of 
foreign  merchants,  steam  rice-mills  and  steam  saw-mills 
signal  the  development  of  the  country.  In  1882  Siam 
observed  her  centennial.  Flags  of  all  countries  float  in 
the  harbor  of  Bangkok.  The  King  has  established  a 
college,  and  appointed  a  missionary  as  Minister  of  Pub¬ 
lic  Instruction.  Fifty  years  ago  Siam  was  sealed  against 
the  entrance  of  all  foreigners,  traders  or  missionaries. 
To-day,  she  is  in  treaty  relations  with  all  Christian  coun¬ 
tries.  Next  to  the  Mikado  of  Japan,  the  King  of  Siam 
is  the  most  progressive  sovereign  in  Asia.  Few  lands 
are  more  open  to  the  Gospel.  Her  millions  are  all  ac¬ 
cessible  to  the  Christian  missionary,  whose  right  to 
travel  and  build  school-houses  and  churches  anywhere, 
is  protected  by  treaty.  The  women  are  not  secluded. 
The  children  can  be  gathered  in  schools.  There  are 
numerous  Chinese  in  the  Empire.  The  first  church  was 
organized  among  these  Chinese  in  1837  and  it  was  the 
first  church  of  Chinese  Christians  in  all  Asia.  The  first 
Zenana  teaching  ever  attempted  in  the  East  was  done 
by  missionary  ladies  in  1851  among  twenty-one  of  the 
thirty  young  wives  of  the  King  of  Siam,  with  several  of 
the  royal  sisters  in  the  class. 

There  are  six  States  of  Laos  directly  tributary  to  Siam. 
In  1878  the  King  caused  a  Proclamation  of  Religious 
Liberty  to  the  Laos  to  be  made,  containing  a  clause 
securing  the  observance  of  the  Sabbath. 


*THE  OPEN  DOOR  DN  CHINA, 


“The  Christian  religion,  as  professed  by  Protestants 
and  Roman  Catholics,  inculcates  the  practice  of  virtue, 
and  teaches  man  to  do  as  he  would  be  done  by.  Per¬ 
sons  teaching  it  or  professing  it,  therefore,  shall  alike  be 
entitled  to  the  protection  of  the  Chinese  authorities;  nor 
shall  any  such,  peaceably  pursuing  their  calling,  and  not 
offending  against  the  laws,  be  persecuted  or  interfered 
with.”  [Treaty  of  Tientsin.] 

“The  undersigned,  her  Britanic  Majesty’s  Consul, 
requests  the  civil  and  military  authorities  of  the  Emper¬ 
or  of  China,  in  conformity  with  the  ninth  article  of  the 

Treaty  of  Tientsin,  to  allow  -  to  travel  freely  and 

without  hindrance  or  molestation  in  the  Chinese  Empire, 
and  to  give  him  protection  and  aid  in  case  of  necessity.” 
[Form  of  Passport.] 

There  is  the  open  door!  Under  that  form  of  passport 
missionaries  have  gone,  and  may  go,  to  every  Province 
in  China.  Under  that  Treaty  native  Chinese  have  pro¬ 
fessed  the  Christian  religion,  and  though  occasionally 
persecuted  and  their  property  despoiled,  that  is  recog¬ 
nized  as  violence  to  the  prescribed  order  by  the  Imperial 
Government,  and  in  multitudes  of  instances  has  indem¬ 
nity  been  allowed. 

Never  since  the  world  began  did  so  brief  a  document 
admit  at  once  so  large  a  portion  of  the  human  family  to 
the  possibilities  of  Chrisitianity ;  never  before  did  a  state 
document  roll  so  much  responsibility  on  the  Christian 
Church.  The  day  the  signatures  of  the  first  and  second 
Chinese  Plenipotentiaries  and  their  great  seal  were  set 
below  those  of  Elgin  and  Kincardine  in  1858,  one-third 
of  the  human  race  were  admitted  to  the  brotherhood  of 
the  nations,  and  placed  on  the  back  forms  of  the  possible 
audience  of  the  minister  of  the  Gospel.  That  door  was 


*For  fuller  information  concerning  China,  its  country,  people,  missions,  see 
Outline  Missionary  Series  by  J.  T.  Gracey,  D.  D.,  Postpaid,  15c. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CHINA. 


35 


opened  by  the  decree  of  the  Eternal,  not  by  the  ‘  Ver¬ 
million  pencil”  of  the  Imperial  Emperor,  and  for  a  quar¬ 
ter  of  a  century  it  has  not  been  shut.  To  the  Christian 
Church  the  obligation  is  equal  to  the  opportunity. 

China  proper  consists  of  18  provinces,  each  nearly  as 
large  as  Great  Britain,  and  all  practically  open  to  the 
Protestant  missionary.  There  is  one  written  language, 
intelligible  wherever  Chinamen  dwell;  there  is  no  caste 
or  harem  exclusiveness,  such  as  marks  Brahmanical  and 
Muhammadan  people;  the  climate  and  products  are  those 
of  both  temperate  and  tropical  lands;  China  sends 
swarms  of  men  all  over  the  surrounding  lands  and  seas, 
from  Calcutta  to  Australia  and  California,  and  even 
South  America.  Once  Christianized,  the  Chinese  should 
become  the  missionary  race  of  Eastern  Asia,  as  the 
English-speaking  people  have  been  of  the  West. 

There  is  an  open  door  of  travel.  Not  that  there  are 
carriage-roads  or  palace-cars,  but  the  great  rivers  and 
the  Imperial  canals  thread  the  Empire,  and  boats  and 
boatmen  are  easy  of  command  at  economical  rates.  In 
considering  the  possibilities  of  approach  we  must  not 
overlook  the  fact  that  while  there  are  eight  times  as 
many  people  in  China  as  there  are  in  the  United  States, 
and  one-third  more  than  in  all  the  countries  of  Europe 
combined,  the  geographical  center  of  the  country  is  not 
the  center  of  population.  One-half  of  the  people  of  the 
empire  are  in  one-quarter  of  the  territory  and  in  the  por¬ 
tion  most  salubrious  and  accessible  to  travel.  This  open 
door  of  the  public  water  highway  not  only  facilitates  the 
movements  of  the  missionary,  but  facilitates  the  spread 
of  the  truth  by  the  population  which  moves  from  city 
to  city,  and  themselves  disseminate  what  they  learn. 

There  is  the  open  door  of  the  Mandarin  language. 
To  be  sure  there  is  the  obstruction  of  local  dialects,  but 
the  great  literary  door  of  the  Mandarin  language  stands 
open  night  and  day.  Though  a  man  at  Canton  may 
not  understand  the  speech  of  a  man  from  Foochow, 
they  can  both  understand  the  same  books  or  letters,  in 
the  common  literary  language,  written  and  read,  admired 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CHINA. 


36 

and  adored  from  the  Imperial  Palace  to  the  remotest 
hamlet  of  the  empire.  Only  persons  educated  in  this 
literary  language  are  admitted  to  public  office,  and  not 
less  than  ten  thousand  competitors  for  literary  honors 
present  themselves  at  the  national  examinations  held 
every  three  years  at  Peking.  Not  only  do  statesmen 
and  scholars,  however,  become  familiar  with  this,  lan¬ 
guage,  but  shopkeepers,  traders  and  others  acquire  a 
knowledge  of  it.  Additional  force  will  attach  to  this 
medium  for  reaching  the  people  when  we  remember  that 
China  has  a  truly  national  mind.  China  is  not  like  the 
continent  of  Africa  or  the  Americas,  with  a  great  multi¬ 
tude  of  tribes,  having  totally  divergent  ideas,  and  con¬ 
flicting  communal  feeling.  You  do  not,  by  crossing  the 
boundaries  of  States  larger  than  all  England,  pass  from 
one  set  of  feelings  and  tribal  ambitions  to  another.  There 
is  but  one  common  mind,  one  common  civilization,  one 
common  mass  of  feeling,  one  great  and  homogeneous 
people  from  the  great  walls  to  the  sea.  Hence,  through 
this  common  language,  one  appeals  to  common  preju¬ 
dices  and  passions,  makes  arguments  equally  ^available 
and  forceful  at  Hong  Kong,  Peking,  Kiu-Kiang  or 
Chung  King. 

There  is  an  open  door  in  the  considerably  disturbed 
confidence  of  the  people  in  their  religious  system  since 
the  great  Taiping  rebellion.  The  gods  of  Buddhism  and 
Taoism  and  the  110-god  system  of  the  Confucianist,  ail 
alike  proved  unavailing  to  hold  the  Emperor  and  his 
armies  in  power.  It  was  at  this  juncture,  and  after  four¬ 
teen  years  of  unsuccessful  struggle  with  these  insurgent 
elements,  that  at  last  British  guns,  which  had  humil¬ 
iated  the  Emperor  at  Peking,  .  came  to  his  res¬ 
cue  to  preserve  him  in  his  empire.  It  was  not  the 
national  religion,  but  the  “foreign  devil”  who  proved 
equal  to  perpetuating  the  Imperial  Government  of  the 
“great  middle  kingdom.” 

"The  great  open  door  which  is  affording  ingress  to 
foreign  ideas  is  available  for  Christian  evangelism. 
Bounded  on  the  north  by  the  “inhospitable  plains,”  on 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CHINA. 


37 


the  west  by  the  mountains  of  Tibet,  and  on  the  east  by 
“an  ocean  not  yet  plowed  by  the  keels  of  civilized  com¬ 
merce,”  she  had  for  centuries  been  developing  a  civiliza¬ 
tion  of  her  own,  she  was  imperious  and  self-conceited 
as  she  was  self-contained.  China  never  knew  till  the 
Opium  war,  that  she  had  anything  to  learn  from  the 
rest  of  the  world. 

For  more  than  thirty  years  the  West  has,  however, 
been  acting  on  China  by  its  “arms,  its  commerce,  its 
religion  and  its  science.”  China,  after  being  hermetically 
sealed  for  centuries,  is  at  last  having  an  inflow  of  new 
ideas,  and  the  Christian  religion  flows  in  as  a  part  of  the 
new  order  of  things. 

After  their  first  rude  shock  they  began  to  study  war- 
facilities;  but  they  could  not  stop  there.  Soon  schools 
were  established  at  the  open  ports  for  the  study  of  the 
languages  and  sciences  of  the  West,  and  along  the 
avenues  of  literature  were  seen  translations  of  works  of 
science  and  the  useful  arts.  French  inspectors  and  Brit¬ 
ish  naval  Post-chaplains  have  inspected  Chinese  frigates, 
and  trained  sailors  for  Chinese  fleets.  Retiring  officers 
of  the  British  army  have  commanded  the  camp  of 
instruction  at  Shanghai,  and  Americans  have  drilled 
forces  at  Ningpo.  Krupp  guns  surmount  Taku  forts. 
A  schoolmaster  trained  by  the  Bishop  of  Victoria  is 
employed  as  special  translator.  Treaties  on  mining  are 
read  by  Viceroys,  and  fine  steamships  owned,  manned 
and  controlled  by  Chinese,  plow  the  great  rivers,  plv  the 
coast  and  cross  the  Pacific. 

It  is  at  a  time  like  this,  when  one-third  of  the  human 
race  turns  as  with  one  mind  to  study  western  mathe¬ 
matics  and  to  put  them  into  the  course  of  study  for  ten 
thousand  students  triennially  passing  civil  service  exam¬ 
ination,  and  when  social  laws  and  material  science  from 
the  West  are  entering  the  great  Empire,  they  are  com¬ 
pelled  to  fix  their  attention  too  on  the  religion  of  the 
West  and  we  have  been  privileged  to  go  unmolested, 
threading  every  highway  and  by-way  to  make  known 


38 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


the  faith  of  our  fathers,  and  thus  to  have  these  ideas 
enter  China  as  a  part  of  the  new  order  of  things. 

The  Government  notified  even  French  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  missionaries  that  they  need  not  flee  the  country 
because  of  recent  French  atrocities.  It  is  a  most  sig¬ 
nificant  fact  that  at  a  time  when  Great  Britain  has 
formed  an  alliance  offensive  and  defensive  with  China, 
that  Burma  comes  under  British  rule,  and  the  high¬ 
way  through  the  Shan  States  into  Western  China  is  to 
be  protected  by  a  Christian  power. 

The  great  riots  in  China  which  threatened  temporary 
check  to  the  progress  of  missions,  have  burned  but  to 
enlarge  their  liberties.  The  Imperial  Edict  sent  all  over 
the  Empire  (1891)  ordering  that  persons  molesting  for¬ 
eigners  and  even  Chinese  Christians,  shall  be  punished, 
is  considered  the  most  important  State  document  ever 
issued  in  China  favorable  to  Christianity. 

The  China-Japan  war,  which  humiliated  China,  has 
been  followed  by  intenser  interest  in  the  subject  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  and  accessions  to  the  ranks  of  missionary  adher¬ 
ents  have  been  greater  than  before'. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  ON  MEXICO. 


Mexico  is  commanding  much  attention  from  many 
lands.  It  is  one  of  the  fairest  regions  of  the  earth.  Put 
on  its  surface  the  republic  of  France,  place  beside  that 
the  British  Isles,  add  Portugal,  and  you  will  still  have 
room  for  the  whole  of  Austria.  It  is  nearly  two  thou¬ 
sand  miles  in  length,  with  an  average  width  of  four  hun¬ 
dred  miles.  Lay  it  on  our  Republic,  and  it  would  cover 
one-third  of  our  territory.  It  has  an  area  of  763,804 
square  miles,  with  an  estimated  population  of  eleven 
millions. 

Four-fifths  of  her  territory  is  an  immense  table-land, 
with  a  climate  the  most  varied  and  attractive  in  the  tor- 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


39 


rid  zone.  You  may  choose  within  her  borders  perpetual 
snow  or  continuous  summer;  the  flowers  and  fruits  of 
the  tropics,  or  the  pines  and  hemlocks  of  the  frigid  zone. 

Her  mountains,  hills  and  valleys  abound  in  minerals, 
while  her  sea  coast  yields  pearls  like  those  she  furnished 
for  the  crowns  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella. 

The  registered  coinage  of  the  mint  of  Mexico  for  one 
hundred-and-thirty-five  years  amounts  to  twenty-hun¬ 
dred  millions  of  dollars.  One  “lode”  alone,  in  1873,  paid 
the  stockholders  the  enormous  sum  of  over  twenty  mil¬ 
lions  of  dollars.  Another  silver  mine  produced  twenty 
thousand  dollars  per  day  for  five  years,  when  it  was 
stopped  by  a  flood;  it  produced  fifty  millions  in  three 
years  thereafter;  between  1871  and  1881  it  yielded  annu¬ 
ally  thirteen-millions  four-hundred  dollars.  No  silver 
mines  have  ever  been  known  to  give  out.  The  mines 
which  the  Aztecs  worked  before  Cortez  came,  are  profit¬ 
able  as  ever.  The  mintage  of  the  Republic  of  Mexico, 
of  silver,  gold  and  copper,  was  over  twenty  millions  of 
dollars.  More  than  three-thousand-millions  of  coinage 
in  this  country  can  be  readily  established.  Doubtless, 
Mexico  has  produced  one-half  the  existing  stock  of 
silver  in  the  world.  She  has  a  horticultural  region  on 
the  Pacific,  equal  in  extent  to  all  of  Cuba,  where  the  cot¬ 
ton  plant  propagates  itself  and  wheat  yields  from  sev¬ 
enty  to  a  hundred  fold. 

She  has  a  half-dozen  distinct  races,  whites,  Aztecs, 
mestizoes  and  zamboes,  negroes  and  mulattos,  or  more 
exactly,  three  races:  the  old  Spanish,  the  Aztec,  and 
these  two  mixed  in  the  Mestees.  Eight  millions  are 
Aztecs,  and  probably  six  millions  are  pure  Indian.  One 
authority  says:  “Of  the  total  population  of  the  republic, 
one-sixth  are  European,  one-half  pure  Indian,  and  one- 
third  a  mixture  of  these  two.”  A  gentleman  who  con¬ 
ducted  the  negotiation  for  a  million  of  acres  of  land  in 
the  Mexican  State  of  Zacatecas,  about  half  way  between 
our  Texas  border  and  the  City  of  Mexico,  said  that  he 
made  the  purchase  really  for  Bismarck,  who  desired  to 
obtain  ten  millions  of  acres  of  land  in  Mexico,  on  which 


40 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


to  build  up  a  German  colony.  The  Government  of  Mexico 
has  entered  into  a  contract  with  a  firm  at  Leghorn,  Italy, 
for  the  sending  of  a  thousand  emigrants  every  trip,  on  the 
Mexican  Transatlantic  Company’s  steamers,  insuring  an 
immigration  of  at  least  sixteen  thousand  Europeans 
every  year.  In  this  immigration  the  three  great  Latin 
races  of  Europe  will  be  represented,  though  the  bulk  of 
the  immigrants  will  naturally  be  Italians. 

The  moral  and  religious  condition  of  the  inhabitants 
is  not  felicitous.  The  Aztecs  were,  perhaps,  the  flower  of 
the  Indian  races  of  the  two  Americas.  The  ancient  Mex¬ 
ican  reveals  a  mixture  of  barbaric  splendor  and  semi- 
civilized  life.  We  cannot  comprehend  the  religious  and 
moral  situation  of  the  population  of  Mexico,  without 
studying  their  civilization  and  their  religious  notions  and 
ceremonies  (for  these  are  the  base  of  what  exist  to-day); 
their  causeways,  their  streets,  their  market-places,  their 
idol-temple,  with  its  dumb  idols  foul  with  human  blood, 
their  land,  and  their  magnificent  Capital.  The  “Halls  of 
the  Montezumas’’  is  now  a  poetic  phrase — it  was  poetry 
in  architecture.  Three  thousand  persons  could  assemble 
in  one  of  the -rooms  of  the  palace,  and  on  its  terraced  roof 
“a  splendid  tournament”  might  have  been  given.  There 
was  a  large  pantheon  of  deities,  good  and  bad,  for  war 
and  for  peace;  the  enclosure  of  their  temple  was  itself 
a  town,  and  “no  human  tongue  could  explain  the  grand¬ 
eur  and  the  peculiarities  of  that  temple.” 

The  prevailing  religion  in  Mexico  to-day  is  the  Roman 
Catholic— malformed  Christianity.  For  three  centuries 
the  Roman  Church  dominated  Mexico.  Immense  stone 
churches  were  erected  in  different  cities  and  towns  of 
Mexico,  and  spacious  convents  and  convent  churches 
were  built  for  the  several  orders  of  friars  and  nuns.  The 
cathedral  recommended  by  Philip  II,  is  still  the  grand¬ 
est  church  building  in  the  Americas.  Enriched  by  the 
vast  wealth  of  the  land,  this  branch  of  the  Spanish 
Church  became  the  “richest  of  churches.”  The  Church 
was  the  banker  of  the  nation,  loaning  money  on  mort- 
o-aw  until  she  came  to  possess  two-thirds  of  the  real 

o  o  1 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


41 


estate,  and  as  all  church  property  was  exempt  from  tax¬ 
ation,  the  rate  had  to  be  distributed  over  the  remaining 
one-third  of  the  taxable  property.  It  is  estimated  that 
still  from  one-third  to  one-half  of  the  real  estate  is  owned 
by  priests,  notwithstanding  they  have  lost  of  late  years 
through  the  confiscation  of  the  State,  property  estimated 
at  nearly  three  hundred  millions  of  dollars.  Of  the  prop¬ 
erty  of  the  City  of  Mexico,  it  is  thought  they  own  at  least 
one-half.  The  church  still  collects  from  rentals,  tithes 
and  parochial  dues,  throughout  the  republic,  twenty  mil¬ 
lions  a  year.  Withal,  she  has  left  the  people  poor,  igno¬ 
rant,  superstitious  and  immoral.  The  image  of  the  saint 
was  exchanged  for  the  Aztec  idol  and  saint-worship  has 
proven  but  little  improvement  on  idolatry.  Perhaps  nine 
millions  of  people  have  no  other  God  than  the  crucifix 
and  the  Virgin  Mary. 

Other  superstitions  obtain  throughout  the  land:  In 
the  district  of  Chiautla,  for  instance,  the  Indians  carry 
in  procession  a  shapeless  mass  of  wood,  adorned  with  a 
rosary  of  iguanas  (a  kind  of  a  lizard)  and  snakes.  This 
they  call  their  patron,  San  Sebastian ;  and  this  modified 
fetishism  is  countenanced  by  the  clergy  of  a  church 
which  professes  to  be  the  repository  of  all  true  Chris¬ 
tianity. 

The  moral  condition  of  the  people  is  low.  Perhaps  hail 
the  population  living  together  as  man  and  wife  are  not 
married.  The  exorbitant  marriage-fees  of  the  Church 
have  had  much  to  do  with  this.  Such  a  state  of  immor 
ality  need  not  be  enlarged  on.  Ignorance,  too,  is  rife; 
not  one-third  of  the  total  population  are  able  to  read  and 

write.  . 

What  are  the  opportunities  for  relieving  the  situation . 

First- _ The  Government  itself  favors  and  aids  reform. 

With  the  downfall  of  the  Maximilian  regime,  a  new  era 
dawned.  The  State  has  confiscated  a  large  amount  of 
ecclesiastical  propertv,  and  appropriated  it  to  State  edu¬ 
cation,  and  bestowed  them,  for  the  purposes  of  Protestant 
education,  allowing  the  priestly  party  to  select  for  use, 
though  not  to  own,  as  many  church  edifices  as  they 


42 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


thought  they  might  need  for  worship.  All  monasteries, 
nunneries,  inquisition-houses,  etc.,  were  secularized  and 
sold  to  pay  the  public  debts  of  the  country,  and  con¬ 
verted  into  stores,  cotton  warehouses,  etc. ;  or  where 
they  covered  whole  blocks  streets  were  run  through 
them.  They  overturned  all  religious  orders,  so  that 
to-day  there  is  not  a  monk,  nor  nun,  nor  friar,  nor  Jesuit. 
In  1854  the  City  of  Mexico  contained  twenty-nine  relig¬ 
ious  houses  with  about  five  hundred  monks  and  nuns. 
A  correspondent  from  Mexico  to  the  Cologne  Gazette, 
says  of  the  buildings  confiscated: 

“Some  of  them  are  magnificent  specimens  of  archi¬ 
tecture,  and  the  schools  especially  may  congratulate 
themselves  on  the  spacious  quarters  which  have  been 
assigned  to  them  in  the  finest  monasteries  in  the  country. 
They  have  large  halls  for  lectures,  court-yards  sur¬ 
rounded  by  galleries,  gardens  and  fountains.  The  Palace 
of  the  Inquisition,  which  is  one  of  the  finest  buildings 
in  the  town,  is  now  occupied  by  the  Medical  School,  a 
magnificent  convent  by  the  Law  School,  and  the  large 
Jesuit  monastery  of  San  Ildefonsa  by  the  so-called  Escu- 
ela  Preparatoria,  or  Training  School.  Several  of  the 
churches  are  used  as  store-houses,  two  are  used  for 
Protestant  services,  and  some  are  already  falling  into 

•  yy 

rum. 

Second. — The  present  Government  is  doing  something 
to  dispel  the  ignorance  of  the  land.  There  are  thousands 
of  schools  established  in  the  republic,  yet  they  are  poorly 
organized,  and  dominated  by  priestly  influence. '  The 
intermediate  and  high  schools  are  permeated  with  skepti¬ 
cal  teaching,  example  and  influence.  In  districts  remote 
from  the  large  towns,  even  the  most  elementary  educa¬ 
tion  is  well-nigh  impossible,  because  of  the  poverty  of 
the  people. 

Third. — The  material  development  of  the  country  by 
railroads  and  telegraph,  affords  a  fine  opportunity  for 
Protestant  work.  The  number  of  miles  of  railway  oper¬ 
ated  and  being  constructed,  is  amazing  to  those  who 
first  learn  of  it.  The  outstretching  of  this  system,  through 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  MEXICO. 


43 


the  steamer  and  railroad  connections  of  Central  and 
South  America,  promises  a  great  inflow  and  outflow  of 
influences  north  and  south — promises  that  Mexico  will 
become  a  most  important  center  of  influences  on  this 
western  hemisphere.  It  is  no  hour  to  be  idle.  Its  full 
system  of  telegraph  and  cable  lines  will  carry  from  the 
City  of  Mexico  to  Lima  in  South  America;  thence  across 
the  Andes  to  Maldonado;  thence  to  Rio  Janeiro;  thence 
to  Portugal;  while  its  northern  connections  are  with  the 
Western  Union  Telegraph  Company’s  system.  At  El 
Paso  the  total  railway  systems  of  Mexico  are  clamped 
to  the  total  railway  systems  of  the  north,  so  that  one  may 
take  a  palace  car  through  from  capital  to  capital,  or  from 
Toronto  or  Washington  to  the  City  of  Mexico. 

Fourth. — Note  the  far-reaching  influence  of  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  Mexico.  The  influence  of  Mexico  will  flow 
through  the  Spanish  tongue;  and  we  must  take  account 
of  this  outflow.  Ninety  millions  of  people  speak  the  Eng¬ 
lish  tongue,  fifty-six  millions  speak  German,  fifty-one 
millions  speak  Spanish,  and  forty-five  millions  speak 
French.  The  Rio  Grande  separates  the  English-speak¬ 
ing  races  and  the  Spanish-speaking  races  of  North  and 
South  America.  South  of  that  river  sixteen  nations  speak 
Spanish.  Mexico  is  thought  by  some,  well  conversant 
with  the  situation,  to  be  the  natural  leader  of  the  other 
fifteen  Spanish-speaking  States,  and  that  means  all  south 
of  her  to  Cape  Horn,  except  Brazil,  which  speaks  Por¬ 
tuguese. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA. 


South  America  is  the  smaller  half  of  the  new  world. 
Four-fifths  of  it  lies  in  the  tropics.  It  is  largest  where 
North  America  is  smallest,  and  smallest  where  it  is 
largest.  Some  have  thought  its  physical  position,  lying 
so  largely  in  the  tropics  gave  it  a  great  advantage  pros¬ 
pectively  over  the  Northern  part  of  the  hemisphere,  of 
which  so  great  a  proportion  lies  in  the  cold  of  the  far 
north.  This  is  deceptive  when  merely  judged  from  the 
map.  Commercially,  the  most  largely  productive  part 
of  South  America,  after  all,  is  found  within  its  temperate, 
not  within  its  tropical  districts.  Brazil  is  the  size  of  the 
United  States,  but  a  small  part  of  it  is  esteemed  capable 
of  agriculture.  The  equatorial  valley  is  filled  with  dense 
forests.  Yet  South  America  is,  as  a  whole,  very  inter¬ 
esting  and  important.  Fifty — some  say  sixty — millions 
of  people  make  up  the  population  of  Spanish  America 
including  the  West  Indies  and  Brazil,  of  whom  not  less 
than  five  per  cent,  are  European  subjects.  There  are 
also  about  a  half  million  savage  Indians;  or  roughly, 
approaching  twice  as  many  as  the  total  Indian  popula¬ 
tion  of  the  United  States,  including  Alaska.  These  are 
confined  mostly  to  the  interior  of  the  continent  of  South 
America  with  a  few  small  tribes,  numbering  perhaps  five 
thousand,  in  Central  America.  Three-tenths  of  the  popu¬ 
lation  of  South  America  is  put  down  as  pure  white,  and 
one-tenth  negro,  others  are  of  mixed  blood.  The  rapid 
immigration  of  Europeans  of  late  years  has,  however, 
been  materially  modifying  these  proportions. 

The  physical  resources  vary  much  in  the  several 
States  in  relation  to  commerce.  The  Orinoco  is  navi¬ 
gable  for  a  thousand  miles,  the  Amazon  for  twenty-six 
hundred  miles.  From  its  base  to  the  Andes,  with  its 
tributaries,  it  presents  six-thousand  miles  of  navigable 
waters.  The  Upper  Paraguay  and  Southern  Parana 
present  an  uninterrupted  waterway  north  and  south  like 
the  Mississippi.  The  river  Platte  offers  a  more  extensive 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA.  45 

system  of  unobstructed  navigation  than  any  river  in  the 
world,  and  with  the  exception  of  the  Amazon  pours 
more  water  into  the  ocean.  It  affords  more  miles  of 
navigation  than  all  the  rivers  of  Europe  combined,  and 
more  than  the  Mississippi,  with  its  several  tributaries. 
It  is  tidal  260  miles  from  its  mouth,  and  ocean-ships  of 
24  feet  draught  can  be  floated  all  the  year  for  1,000  miles, 
and  those  of  16  to  20  feet  can  go  2,700  miles  into  the 
interior  of  the  continent,  and  a  small  expenditure  of 
money  and  labor  would  enable  a  ship  from 

New  York  or  Liverpool  to  go  direct  into  the  very  heart 
of  the  continent  in  Brazil  by  way  of  Buenos  Ayres.  The 
Amazon  is  obstructed  but  the  Orinoco  is  open  to  large 
vessels. 

An  equal  number  of  cattle  can  be  purchased  in  Argen¬ 
tina  and  Uruguay  for  half  the  money  paid  for  them  in 
Texas.  There  are  96  sheep,  18  cattle  and  four  hoises 
for  each  inhabitant  in  the  River  Platte  country.  The 
foreign  commerce  of  Brazil  is  almost  double  that  of 
Cuba.  No  less  than  five  routes  for  an  inter-continental 
railway  have  been  shown  to  be  possible,  and  some  of 
these  have  had  roads  surveyed  or  operated  for  one-third 
of  the  distance  between  Buenos  Ayres  and  Bogota,  and 
that  within  three  years. 

These  material  matters  emphasize  the  prospective  rela¬ 
tions  and  obligations  of  Protestant  North  America  to 
this  south  land,  the  spiritual  care  of  which  devolves  the 
more  largely  on  us  because  the  European  churches  leave 
these  Papal  and  pagan  peoples  almost  wholly  to  our 
labors,  and  they  are  coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  us. 
They  need  the  same  care  that  we  propose  to  bestow  on 
the  dead  churches  of  the  east,  or  on  European  communi¬ 
ties  which  are  spiritually  paralyzed  by  the  Roman 
Church.  For  three  hundred  years  Rome  has  laid  the 
palsy-smiting  hand  of  excessive  and  heretical  sacerdotal¬ 
ism  on  the  people  of  the  Spanish  Americas. 

Brazil  alone  is  as  large  as  the  United  States,  exclusive 
of  Alaska.  It  has  not  now  probably  more  than  one- 
fourth  the  population  of  the  United  States,  but  it  is 


46 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA. 


growing,  and  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  has  well  nigh 
unlimited  resources.  Rio  de  Janeiro  is  worthy  of  our 
thought.  Its  bay  compares  with  that  of  Naples  for 
beauty;  its  population  of  400,000  is  substantially  a  Euro¬ 
pean  population;  it  has  numerous  schools,  public  and 
private  libraries,  art  galleries,  an  Imperial  conservatory 
and  academy  of  music.  San  Paulo,  fifty  miles  inland  and 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  southwest  of  Rio  de  Janeiro, 
in  the  large  coffee-growing  region,  is  a  city  of  35,000. 
It  is  “The  Athens  of  Brazil,”  with  a  Roman  Catholic 
theological  seminary,  and  a  law  university,  one  of  two 
in  the  empire.  Bahia,  700  miles  northeast  of  Rio  de 
Janeiro,  on  the  sea  coast,  is  a  still  larger  city  having  a 
population  of  200,000.  It  is  the  oldest  city  in  Brazil. 
But  this  vast  country  is  just  now  feeling  the  thrill  of 
modern  energy,  railroads  are  being  projected  to  develop 
it,  and  there  is  the  stir  of  a  new  life. 

According  to  the  census  of  the  Brazilian  Government 
in  1870,  the  smallest  number  of  children  in  the  schools, 
in  proportion  to  the  free  population,  was  in  the  Province 
of  Goyaz,  and  was  as  low  as  one  in  two-hundred  and 
eight;  the  highest  was  in  Clara,  which  was  one  in  forty- 
six. 

Romanism  has  held  sway  for  more  than  three-hundred 
years,  and  yet  if  one  child  in  each  seven  inhabitants  of 
a  civilized  community  may  be  estimated  to  be  of  a  school 
age,  then  in  the  best  part  of  this  Empire,  not  more  than 
about  one  in  seven  of  those  who  should,  attend  school. 

Slavery  in  Brazil  has  been  abolished  but  these  ex¬ 
slaves  cannot  read  or  write  and  many  of  them  continue 
their  heathen  superstitions.  They  are  fetish  worshipers 
still.  All  these  are  accessible,  and  they  will  be  an  impor¬ 
tant  factor  in  the  future  of  Brazil. 

The  Province  of  Bahia  is  one  of  the  most  advanced 
in  many  respects,  yet  even  there,  not  more  than  one  in 
seventeen  of  a  school-age,  attend  school.  But  we  write 
now  only  of  free  persons.  The  slaves,  which  number 
perhaps  a  million,  do  not  enter  into  this  calculation. 

Brazil  has  ceased  to  be  an  Empire  and  become  a 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA. 


47 


Republic.  By  her  new  laws  it  is  forbidden  to  the  States 
and  to  the  Union  to  establish,  disestablish  or  hinder  any 
religious  service.  .  .  .  All  individuals  of  whatever 

religious  confession  may  exercise  their  worship  in  public 
and  freely,  coming  together  to  that  end;  and  acquire 
goods,  observing  the  limit  put  by  the  law.  .  .  .  Not 

one'  Church  or  worship  has  special  official  protection, 
nor  shall  it  have  any  relation  of  dependence  or  alliance 
with  the  Government  of  the  Union  or  of  the  States. 

“The  Jesuitical  company  is  excluded  from  the  country, 
nor  is  it  allowed  to  make  any  new  convents  or  monas¬ 
teries.  There  is  perfect  liberty  to  manifest  one’s  opinions 
on  whatever  subject,  by  press  or  platform,  without  fear 
of  censor;  each  one,  however,  will  be  responsible  for  any 
abuse  of  this  privilege.’'’ 

Brazil  presented  three  obstacles  to  progress  to  the  mind 
of  Agassiz;  slavery,  a  corrupt  clergy,  and  a  lack  of  educa¬ 
tional  institutions.  Now  slavery  is  gone,  but  even  with 
it  Agassiz  could  say  in  his  “Journey  to  Brazil,”  “There 
is  much  also  that  is  very  cheering  that  leads  me  to  believe 
that  her  life  as  a  nation  will  not  belie  her  great  gifts  as  a 
country.  Should  her  moral  and  intellectual  endowments 
grow  into  harmony  with  her  wonderful  natural  beauty 
and  wealth  the  world  will  not  have  seen  a  fairer  land.” 

The  United  States  of  Colombia  is  a  territory  into  which 
we  could  put  the  States  of  New  York,  Pennsylvania, 
Maryland,  Delaware  and  all  of  New  England,  and  have 
room  left  to  put  our  magnificent  Dakotas  up  behind  them 
all.  And  yet  the  statistics  of  education  are  quite  similar 
to  those  of  Brazil.  What  a  vast  region  of  illiteracy? 
When  we  sweep  our  telescope  all  over  this  vast  continent 
we  find  the  shading  but  little  lighter  anywhere,  and  the 
deepening  of  the  lines  in  other  places. 

Guiana  has,  with  her  other  populations,  the  added 
interest  of  more  than  a  half-million  of  Hindus,  imported 
for  labor  in  her  territory,  amongst  whom  Christians  may 
work  without  let  or  hindrance. 

Peru  and  Chile,  on  the  west  coast  are  our  nearest 
neighbors,  for  the  line  of  communication  with  them  is 

b  ' 


48 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA. 


very  direct.  Chile  is  in  transition.  It  stretches  from  18 
degrees  south  to  Cape  Horn,  or  2,660  miles  in  length, 
averaging  820  miles  in  width.  Through  this  land  of  the 
Incas  sweeps  the  famous  twenty-feet-broad  highway  from 
Quito  two  thousand  miles  southward,  cut  for  miles 
through  solid  rock,  built  in  many  places  of  heavy  flags 
of  freestone.  Its  population  numbers  about  two  mil¬ 
lions  and  a-quarter,  occupying  a  territory  one  and  one- 
half  times  that  of  California.  There  are  more  than  a 
thousand  public  schools  in  the  country,  with  high  schools, 
a  normal  school  and  a  university,  all  under  the  direction 
of  the  Government.  There  are  over  one-hundred  and 
twenty  newspapers  published  in  the  country,  twenty-nine 
of  which  are  dailies.  The  press  is  not  favorable  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  power  of  the  Papacy, 
and  has  contributed  largely  to  bring  about  the  reforms 
attracting  now  so  large  attention.  The  power  of  the 
Spanish  Government  was  broken  in  1818,  and  Chile  has 
since  maintained  her  independence.  It  was  a  long  strug¬ 
gle,  however,  till  twenty-eight  years  later,  when  Spain 
acknowledged  this  independence.  The  present  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  Republic  was  adopted  in  1833,  and  it  is  said 
to  be  the  second  oldest  political  constitution  in  the  world. 
By  this  constitution  the  Roman  Catholic  was  made  the 
State  Church,  with  liberal  patronage  and  exclusive  pro¬ 
tection. 

Great  reforms  have  been  in  progress.  Those  tending 
to  break  the  power  of  the  State  Church  come  first.  In 
consideration  of  its  financial  support,  the  Church  granted 
to  the  Chilean  Government  the  right  to  nominate  the 
incumbent  to  the  archbishopric  and  bishopric  of  the 
Chilean  Church.  In  1877  the  archbishopric  became  vacant 
by  the  death  of  the  incumbent,  and  the  Government  nom¬ 
inated  a  priest  who  was  distasteful  to  the  Pope  on 
account  of  his  liberal  sentiments.  The  Pope,  therefore, 
refused  to  confirm  the  nomination  of  this  man,  Sen  or 
Tafaro,  making  pretext  that  his  family  record  was  not 
altogether  unquestioned.  He  was  an  able,  philanthropic, 
enterprising  and  liberal  gentleman,  and  the  Government 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA.  49 

declined  to  make  any  other  nomination.  No  new  name 
was  sent,  and  the  Pope  sent  an  ambassador  to  adjust  the 
difficulty  with  the  Government,  but  the  bearing  of  this 
legate  was  so  obnoxious  that  the  Government  ordered 
him  to  leave  the  country  within  ten  days.  Diplomatic 
relations  have  not  been  renewed  between  the  Pope  and 
the  Chilean  Government  since;  and  as  all  the  bishoprics 
of  the  country  but  one  have  become  vacant  and  as  there 
is  no  provision  for  filling  these  offices,  the  Roman  Cath¬ 
olic  Church  is  practically  in  a  state  of  suspense  in  the 
Republic. 

Still  further,  a  bill  passed  the  Lower  House,  and  was 
presented  to  the  Senate,  abolishing  the  State  connection 
with  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  requiring  the 
President  to  make  oath,  not  as  formerly,  to  defend  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  but  to  defend  all,  of  whatever 
religious  faith,  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  public 
worship  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience. 

The  next  feature  of  these  reforms  we  notice  is  the 
recognition  of  civil  marriages.  The  Church  has  always 
demanded  exclusive  right  of  solemnization  of  marriage, 
but  here,  as  in  many  other  Roman  Catholic  countries, 
the  fees  became  so  exorbitant,  reaching  to  thirty-five  and 
forty  dollars,  as  practically  to  place  ecclesiastical  mar¬ 
riage  beyond  the  reach  of  the  poorer  classes.  A  Roman¬ 
ist  and  a  Protestant  could  not  be  married  except  by  that 
costly  and  criminal  process  of  a  dispensation  from  the 
Pope,  and  that  meant  an  outlay  from  five  hundred  to  a 
thousand  dollars,  and  a  year  or  two  or  even  more  of 
delay.  The  consequence  of  this  in  Chile  was  what  such 
obstruction  had  been  everywhere,  a  fearful  proportion 
of  illegitimate  births,  and  a  low  sentiment  concerning 
marital  bonds  and  relations.  The  Government  has  pro¬ 
vided  for  the  civil  registration  of  marriages,  births  and 
deaths,  from  which  the  Church  hitherto  reaped  consider¬ 
able  revenue. 

Chronologically,  however,  the  first  of  these  reforms 
was  that  of  secularizing  the  cemeteries.  Though  they 
had  been  established  by  the  Government,  they  had  been 


5o 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA. 


consecrated  by  the  Church,  and  only  Romanists  of  good 
church-standing  were  allowed  interment  within  them. 
Other  cemeteries,  not  consecrated  by  the  Romanists, 
were  established  by  Protestants,  foreign  residents  and 
others,  who  lost  members  of  their  families  by  death. 
The  number  of  Dissenters  and  non-Romanist  Chileans 
of  many  classes  became  numerous  and  influential,  and 
it  was  at  length  not  possible  to  prevent  their  interment 
m  the  consecrated  cemeteries.  The  anti-Romanist  senti¬ 
ment  at  length  became  so  strong  as  to  lead  the  Govern¬ 
ment  to  declare  the  secularization  of  all  the  cemeteries. 
The  Church  authorities  fulminated  decrees  against  these 
cemeteries,  procured  new  lots,  and  ordered  the  removal 
of  the  remains  of  the  faithful  to  them;  and  when  that 
was  met  by  the  Executive  of  the  Government,  the  eccle¬ 
siastics  next  used  all  the  crypts  and  vaults  of  the 
Churches,  and  within  three  days,  in  Santiago,  they 
removed  a  thousand  bodies  to  them.  The  only  resort  of 
the  Romanists  now,  is  the  consecration  of  individual 
burial  lots. 

We  may  not  stop  to  mention  the  great  struggle  of 
reform  and  liberation  which  is  also  taking  place  in  the 
Argentine  Republic,  the  fierce  struggle  with  ultramon- 
tanism  through  the  press,  the  legislature,  the  executive, 
and  the  schools.  For  the  present,  Liberalism  is  making 
mighty  progress,  and  exerting  an  influence  which  makes 
the  whole  land  seem  to  be  undergoing  a  reformation. 
The  great  physical  and  material  development  of  the 
country  makes  all  this  the  more  necessary  and  the  more 
feasible.  Railroads  are  being  projected  to  the  foot  of 
the  Andes,  and  even  over  them  to  connect  this  system 
with  that  of  Chile. 

Within  a  few  years  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars  have 
been  spent  in  public  improvements.  The  Argentine 
Republic  has  recently  extended  its  jurisdiction  to  Cape 
Horn  by  establishing  a  protectorate  over  Terra  del 
Fuego. 

Other  lands  that  we  have  not  been  wont  to  think  of 
as  important,  are  being  rejuvenated.  Paraguay  seems 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  SOUTH  AMERICA.  5 1 

likely  to  come  to  the  front  again.  For  years  after  the 
death  of  the  last  Lopez,  Paraguay  remained  almost  a 
cypher  among  nations,  for  the  terrible  reason  that  almost 
all  of  its  male  inhabitants  were  slaughtered  in  the  fatal 
war  that  also  cost  Brazil  and  the  Argentine  Republic  so 
much  blood  and  treasure.  The  Paraguayan  population 
in  1870  consisted  almost  wholly  of  women  and  children, 
well-nigh  nude  and  well-nigh  starved.  All  the  cattle  in 
the  country  had  disappeared;  but  in  the  years  that  have 
intervened  the  children  have  grown  up,  many  of  the 
prisoners  and  expatriated  citizens  have  returned  to  their 
homes.  There  is  now  a  respectable  Government.  The 
Paraguayans  are  a  most  interesting  people.  The  aborig¬ 
inal  language,  the  Guarani,  is  still  spoken,  having  never 
been  displaced  by  the  Spanish,  amongst  the  common 
people. 

We  have  thus  touched  upon  most  of  the  fourteen  coun¬ 
tries  which  make  up  this  great  continent  of  South  Amer¬ 
ica.  The  population  in  them  all  are  of  three  classes:  the 
European,  the  native  Indian,  and  the  mixed  races,  and 
they  bear  a  general  type  of  civilization,  having  experi¬ 
enced  the  advantages  and  drawbacks  of  the  old  Roman 
Catholic  Portuguese  and  Spanish  civilization;  a  civiliza¬ 
tion  which  soon  reached  its  zenith,  and  under  the  pall 
of  the  Papacy  extended  a  paralyzing  hand  on  the  very 
energy  and  culture  it  had  evoked.  Though  not  in  all 
equally,  yet  in  all  more  or  less,  there  is  the  same  ten¬ 
dency  to  liberalism,  to  a  revolt  against  sacerdotalism 
and  especially  Ultramontanism,  and  to  the  taking  on  of 
modern  European,  but  more  especially  North  American 
thought  and  habits.  It  is  a  transition  time  in  these 
States  and  Kingdoms  and  Republics,  wherein  Protestant 
ideas,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  are  exerting  unwonted 
power;  a  time  that  will  not  stay,  a  period  most  propitious 
for  the  work  of  Protestant  Evangelism,  but  demanding 
immediate  action  if  we  would,  as  we  may,  mold  their 
educational  institutions,  their  energetic  press,  and  guide 
the  modification  of  laws,  which  so  materially  affect  the 
religious  and  civil  revolution  now  occurring.  Now  is 
the  reformation  before  the  reformation. 


52  THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CENTRAL  AMERICA. 

Rev.  G.  W.  Chamberlain,  of  Brazil,  says  that  South 
America  offers  one  of  the  widest  fields  for  Evangelistic 
work  in  all  the  world-wide  parish;  homogeneous  in  char¬ 
acter  and  to  a  wonderful  extent  in  language,  customs  and 
institutions,  and  hence  affording  peculiar  advantages  to 
the  work  of  the  gospel.  It  is,  he  says,  the  widest  empire 
of  Rome,  and  the  conditions  are  such  as  to  give  the  best 
vantage-ground  from  which  to  bring  influence  to  break 
down  that  hoary  system  of  error,  fraud  and  oppression, 
by  scattering  the  seeds  of  the  word,  and  raising  up  a  new 
people  who  will  walk  in  the  right  way  of  the  Lord. 
Surely,  he  says,  the  Christian  Churches  of  North  Amer¬ 
ica  have  a  grave  responsibility  towards  the  more  than 
half-pagan,  or  less  than  half-Christian  multitudes  of 
South  America. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CENTRAL 

AMERICAo 

Central  America  has  three  classes  of  natives — of  pure 
whites  a  few;  of  Indians  about  3,000;  the  remainder, 
composing  the  bulk  of  the  population,  are  of  mixed 
Indian  and  Spanish  blood,  the  Spanish  element  predom¬ 
inating.  These  are  distinguished  above  all  other  Spanish- 
American  peoples  by  sobriety  and  simplicity.  Indolence, 
however,  is  a  universal  characteristic,  and  their  supersti¬ 
tions  are  of  the  grossest  form.  Of  late  the  wealth  of  the 
country  has  increased  greatly,  developing  a  tendency  to 
luxury,  gambling  and  the  use  of  intoxicants. 

Besides  these  three  native  classes  there  are  about  2,000 
Europeans  of  the  better  class,  300  North  Americans, 
1,500  Italian  laborers  and  1,500  Jamaica  negroes.  The 
population  is  mainly  gathered  upon  the  central  plateau. 
The  entire  population  is  probably  between  225,000  and 
250,000. 

Costa  Rica  is  nominally  Roman  Catholic.  In  writing 
of  the  religious  state  of  any  Spanish  American  country 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  CENTRAL  AMERICA. 


53 


it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  upon  a  consideration  of  the 
Romish  system  as  it  is  understood  by  its  more  enlight¬ 
ened  votaries  in  Europe  and  America,  for  even  they 
concede  that  in  Spanish  America,  it  has  degenerated  into 
sheer  idolatry.  The  Abbe  Dominec,  Chaplain  to  the 
Emperor  Maximilian,  denounced  the  form  of  Romanism 
which  he  found  in  Mexico  as  “virtual  heathenism.”  It 
would  be  easy  to  fill  pages  with  evidences  of  this,  and 
so  to  demonstrate  that  whatever  lukewarmness  toward 
missions  to  the  Papal  countries  of  Europe  Christians 
may  tolerate  in  themselves,  their  arguments  fall  to  the 
ground  when  applied  to  missions  to  Spanish  America. 

In  Costa  Rica,  as  in  other  Central  American  Repub¬ 
lics,  the  population  is  divided  by  the  line  of  education. 
The  uneducated  masses  adhere  blindly  to  the  degrading 
superstitions  in  which  they  have  been  reared;  the  edu¬ 
cated  few,  in  the  language  of  a  diplomatic  representative 
of  this  country,  “are  growing  unmindful  of  their  ances¬ 
tral  religion,  and  the  next  generation  will  see  a  more 
rapid  decline  of  the  power  of  the  priest.  Business  and 
professional  men  never  attend  mass.” 

Of  all  the  unoccupied  fields  in  the  world  call¬ 
ing  for  evangelistic  agencies,  the  nearest  to  any  Chris¬ 
tian  in  the  United  States  or  Canada  is  Central 
America.  Except  the  small  Presbyterian  mission  in 
Guatamala  there  is  no  organized  effort  for  Christ’s  Gos¬ 
pel  in  all  these  lands;  or,  so  it  was,  until  recently,  when 
the  Central  American  Mission  was  formed  for  carrying 
the  gospel  to  the  unevangelized  lands  of  Costa  Rica, 
Nicaragua,  San  Salvador  and  Honduras.  The  Jamaica 
Baptist  Missionary  Society  has  a  missionary  at  Port 
Limon,  which  is  exclusively  among  Jamaica  negroes 
employed  as  laborers  at  that  place,  and  that  was  all  there 
was  until  the  Central  American  mission  recently  opened 
work  by  sending  Mr.  McConnell  from  St.  Paul,  Minn., 
to  commence  a'  mission  at  San  Jose.  Mr.  C.  I.  Scofield, 
the  secretary  of  this  mission  at  Dallas,  Texas,  says  that 
it  is  undenominational  and  entirely  in  the  hands  of  lay¬ 


men. 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH 

EMPIRE. 

Turkey,  shorn  of  territory  both  Christian  and  Muham¬ 
madan  in  Europe  and  Asia  by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  still 
consists  directly  of  twenty  and  one-half  millions  of  peo¬ 
ple,  covering  one  and  one-ninth  millions  of  square  miles, 
of  the  lands  which  were  first  Christianized  and  sent  forth 
missionaries  until  the  Muhammadan  apostacy  began.  Of 
the  population,  four  and  one-half  millions  are  still  in 
Europe  in  four  provinces,  and  sixteen  millions  are  in 
Asia  in  twelve  provinces. 

1.  — Open  evangelism  amongst  Muhammadans  is  not 
yet  permitted,  but  apart  from  that,  the  field  is  a  wide 
one.  In  1847,  the  English  ambassador  obtained  an  impe¬ 
rial  decree  constituting  the  native  Protestants  a  separate 
and  independent  community,  by  what  is  known  as  a 
Hatti-Sherif  having  the  Imperial  autograph. 

In  1839,  and  after  the  Crimean  war  in  1856,  the  Sul¬ 
tan  was  compelled  to  concede  religious  freedom  to  his 
Christian  subjects,  and  the  right  to  hold  land,  along 
with  other  rights  which  have  never  really  been  enforced. 

Civil  and  religious  liberty  is  guaranteed  to  the  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  Porte  by  six  articles  in  the  Treaty  of  Berlin. 

In  1878  the  “Convention  of  defensive  alliance  between 
Great  Britain  and  Turkey”  placed  Asiatic  Turkey  under 
British  protection  and  leased  Cyprus  to  England,  the 
terms  being  that  she  defend  Turkey  “by  force  of  arms  ’ 
if  necessary,  while  the  Sultan  is  pledged  to  reforms 
chiefly  for  protection  of  the  Christians.  After  the  mas¬ 
sacres  of  i860,  Lord  Dufferin  secured  a  special  adminis¬ 
trative  system  for  “The  Lebanon,”  under  a  Christian 
governor-general.  Practically,  no  Mussalman  may  become 
a  Christian  without  persecution  to  the  death,  and  Chris¬ 
tian  work  is  confined  mainly  to  the  followers  of  the  East¬ 
ern  Churches — Greek,  Armenian,  Nestorian,  and  Coptic. 

2.  — After  thirty-five  years  in  the  Turkish  Empire,  Dr. 
Hamlin  is  competent  to  testify  to  the  changes  wrought 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE. 


55 


therein.  He  says: — that  Turkey  has  made  progress  in 
education  in  the  last  half  century.  Printed  school  books 
in  the  spoken  languages  have  been  introduced  in  the 
schools  of  the  chief  nationalities;  every  native  race  has 
the  beginning  of  a  literature.  The  whole  scheme  of  Mos¬ 
lem  education  has  been  secularized;  even  the  Govern¬ 
ment  University  is  not  subject  to  the  clergy.  Moslem 
schools  are  established  on  a  graded  system. 

European  law  in  the  form  of  substantially  the  Euro¬ 
pean  code  has  been  introduced  into  the  courts  as  of  equal 
authority  with  the  Moslem  code;  a  litigant  can  have  his 
choice  of  codes,  and  in  some  quarters  nine-tenths  of  the 
cases  tried  are  by  the  Napoleon  code.  The  different  gov¬ 
ernors  have  an  administrative  council  composed  of  Mos¬ 
lems  and  Christians.  For  twenty  years  the  Ottoman 
Government  has  been  gradually  admitting  Christian  sub¬ 
jects  to  a  share  in  the  higher  offices  of  the  State. 

3.  — There  was  until  recently  no  restriction  on  the  pub¬ 
lication  of  the  Word  of  God,  in  any  language,  in  Turkey. 
Books  and  tracts  must  be  presented  to  a  censor,  but  he 
seldom  censured.  Books  and  tracts  have  been  anathe- 
mized  and  burned,  and  people  persecuted  for  reading  01- 
even  possessing  them;  but  this  has  generally  increased 
the  market.  For  years  the  Missionary  Press  was  the 
chief  source  of  reading  matter  for  the  people  of  Turkey, 
and  doubtless  they  far  outnumber,  even  now,  the  issues 
of  any  other  press.  It  is  doubted  by  Dr.  Bliss,  of  Con¬ 
stantinople,  if  there  is  a  city  or  town  or  village  of  any 
considerable  size  without,  at  least,  one  copy  of  the  Word 
of  God.  Books  published  by  Protestant  Christians  num¬ 
ber  1,082  titles.  Down  to  1882,  two  million  copies  of 
the  Bible  were  sold  at  a  price  sufficient  to  pay  their  cost. 
Four  newspapers  are  published  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Protestant  Churches,  one  Armenian,  one  Turkish, 
one  Graeco-Turkish  and  one  Bulgarian,  paid  for  invari¬ 
ably  in  advance.  There  are  also  juvenile  publications. 

4.  _ There  was  until  lately  practically  but  little  restric¬ 

tion  on  Christian  schools.  The  ground  for  the  Christian 
college  at  Aintab  was  given  by  Turks.  Ninety  young 


56  THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE. 

women  had  entered  the  college  at  Harput.  The  col¬ 
lege  at  Beirut  had  a  medical  school.  Robert  College  has 
trained  nearly  two  thousand  students.  It  has  twenty 
European  and  American  professors.  In  1883,  out  of  211 
students  seventy  were  Bulgarians. 

5.  — There  is  great  opportunity  to  influence  the  entire 
Turkish  Empire  from  Constantinople.  The  “Star  in  the 
East”  says: — 

“1.  Constantinople  is  the  capital  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire.  2.  It  is  of  vast  dimensions.  3.  It  is  the  seat 
of  government.  4.  Its  inhabitants  represent  the  various 
nationalities  on  whom  the  Holy  Ghost  was  outpoured  at 
Pentecost,  and  who  anciently  were  comprised  under  the 
great  Byzantine  Empire.  5.  It  is  the  heart  of  the  Mos¬ 
lem  faith,  whose  pulsations  are  felt  in  the  Continents  of 
Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  and  reach  the  distant  Soudan 
and  India.  6.  It  rules  over  Palestine,  and  affects  the 
destinies  of  the  Jews.  7.  It  is  now  in  a  condition  of 
crisis.  8.  The  tide  of  opportunities  more  favorable  now 
than  it  ever  has  been  is  great  for  evangelistic  work. 
9.  The  races  once  enlightened  by  Chrysostom,  Gregory, 
and  Athanasius  require  again  the  living  Word,  and 
many  are  anxious  to  raise  their  fallen  candlestick.  10. 
The  Christian  workers  are  ready  to  help,  and  it  is  con¬ 
sequently  of  the  utmost  importance  as  a  rallying  center." 

6.  — The  Christian  community  affords  an  efficient 
agency  for  the  advance  of  Christianity.  They  are  fore¬ 
most  in  progress,  in  knowledge  of  foreign  countries  and 
foreign  languages;  they  have  superior  activity  and 
energy  and  a  favorable  opportunity  for  reaching  great 
prominence  and  power.  Their  churches  have  become 
largely  self-supporting  under  most  unfavorable  circum¬ 
stances.  The  people  are  poor.  The  Turkish  Govern¬ 
ment  has  systematically  robbed  its  people,  through 
depreciation  of  its  own  currency,  of  a  hundred  and  eighty 
millions  of  dollars.  The  commerce  of  the  land  is  almost 
ruined  by  western  competition.  The  English  can  make 
“Turkish  towels”  cheaper  by  machinery  than  they  can 
be  made  by  even  the  wretchedly  underpaid  hand-labor 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE.  57 

of  the  East;  and  can  add  the  cost  of  transportation  to 
Turkey  and  undersell  the  Turkish  manufacturer.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  Turkish  cap,  the  fez,  and  other  manu¬ 
facturers.  The  manufacturing  interests  of  the  country, 
therefore,  have  been  prostrated. 

The  agricultural  interests  have  suffered  for  lack  of 
means  of  transportation.  Wheat  is  sold  at  a  short  dis¬ 
tance  in  the  interior  for  one-fourth  what  it  brings  in  Con¬ 
stantinople,  because  of  the  wretched  and  insufficient 
means  of  carrying  it  to  market. 

The  Government  taxes  the  productions  of  the  country 
equal  to  one-fifth  of  their  value,  and  enforces  its  collec¬ 
tion,  seizing  cooking  utensils,  beds,  or  whatever  has  an 
appreciable  or  supposable  value,  in  payment  of  its 
demands. 

It  is  in  the  face  of  facts  like  these  that  the  native  Prot¬ 
estant  Church,  planted  amidst  intensest  prejudice,  fight¬ 
ing  the  most  terrific  odds,  persecuted,  hunted,  robbed, 
mobbed,  and  sometimes  stripped  of  everything,  has  gone 
on  not  only  increasing  in  numbers,  but  struggling  by 
dint  of  self-denial,  to  sustain  its  own  ministry,  until  one- 
fourth  of  the  American  Board’s  churches  became  wholly 
self-supporting,  and  none  of  them  received  foreign  aid  of 
more  than  one-fourth  to  one-half  of  the  pastor’s  salary. 
This  spirit  of  liberality  had  been  developed  till  the  con¬ 
tributions  of  these  poor  people  equaled  one  dollar  for 
each  Protestant,  and  that  means  a  contribution  for  each 
person  equal  to  ten  to  twenty  days’  wages  or  income. 

The  Constantinople  Branch  of  the  Evangelical  Alli¬ 
ance  is  pressing  the  foreign  Embassies  at  the  Turkish 
capital,  to  present  to  the  Turkish  authorities,  the  evi¬ 
dence  which  they  furnish,  of  the  persecution  of  Chris¬ 
tians,  especially  of  converts  from  Islam,  and  the  denial 
of  guaranteed  rights  to  Protestant  Christians. 

The  several  missionary  societies  exert  a  powerful  influ¬ 
ence  throughout  the  empire;  that  of  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  directs  its  labors  to  the  Arabic-speaking  population 
of  the  Hol};  Land;  the  American  Presbyterian  conduct 
the  Syrian  Protestant  College  at  Beirut,  and  has  four 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE. 


58  * 

principal  stations  besides;  the  American  Board  has  Rob¬ 
ert  College  at  Constantinople,  one  at  Smyrna,  Aintab 
and  Harpoot,  with  six  female  seminaries  at  other  places. 
The  recent  calamities  to  the  Armenian  Mission  are  yet 
unmeasured.  Ahmid  II,  ‘‘The  Great  Assassin,’  has  sys¬ 
tematically  massacred  a  hundred-thousand  Armenians. 
But  the  old  Gregorian  and  Protestant  Churches  now 
present  a  state  of  union  never  before  known.  The 
Edinburgh  Medical  Missions  Society  is  at  Nazareth  and 
Damascus;  the  Free  Church  of  Scotland  has  Lebanon 
missions.  There  are  many  other  agencies  at  work  in 
this  field. 


Bulgaria.  Our  limited  space  precludes  our  treating 
of  that  nation  or  semi-nation,  of  shepherds  and  agricul¬ 
turists  known  as  Bulgarians,  whose  history  as  a  nation 
some  have  traced  to  the  second  century  before  Christ, 
but  who  became  well  known  six  centuries  later.  They 
threatened  the  Greek  capital  of  Constantinople  in  the 
ninth  century.  In  A.  D.  861  their  King  Borese  was  bap¬ 
tized  and  the  nation  became  Christian.  The  Turkish 
Government  sought  to  control  them  through  the  Greek 
Church,  and  the  Greek  ecclesiastics  sought  to  merge 
them  into  the  Greek  See.  They  have  sought  emancipa¬ 
tion  from  Turkish  rule  and  have  maintained  of  late  years 
an  independent  Bulgarian  Church  as  a  national  organ 
through  which  to  communicate  with  the  people.  Thus 
fidelity  to  the  national  Bulgarian  Church  has  become 
identical  with  patriotism,  and  Bishops  have  been  ap¬ 
pointed  not  with  a  view  to  their  orthodoxy  but  to  their 
political  influence.  “Orthodoxy”  is  synonymous  with 
love  of  the  nationality.  This  strong  national  feel¬ 
ing  developed  through  a  thousand  years,  makes 
them  jealous  of  foreign  influence,  and  the  rela¬ 
tion  of  the  National  Church  to  their  independence,  jeal¬ 
ous  of  foreign  religious  influences.  They  have  been  so 
geographically  situated  as  to  become  the  battle-ground 
of  Asia  and  Europe  through  centuries.  The  treaty  of 
Berlin  divided  Bulgaria  by  separating  it  into  two  sec- 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE.  59 

tions,  organizing  Roumelia  out  of  that  portion  of  it 
lying  south  of  the  Balkans,  as  a  separate  government, 
and  granting  autonomy  to  that  part  of  it  lying  north  of 
the  Balkans  as  the  Province  of  Bulgaria.  But  the  peo¬ 
ple  were,  and  are  still,  one  people,  with  one  language, 
with  the  same  traditions  and  the  same  national  ambi¬ 
tions. 

Now  Roumelia  rises  in  rebellion  to  the  Turkish 
authority,  and  in  defiance  of  the  Berlin  treaty,  to  become 
incorporated  with  Bulgaria,  technically  so-called,  to 
make  once  more  the  blood-brotherhood  of  the  old  Big 
Bulgaria.  We  make  bold  to  say  that  “manifest  destiny” 
points  to  a  great  Slavic  nation  in  Southeastern  Europe. 

Few  wish  to  risk  their  prophetic  reputation  in  fore¬ 
telling  the  future  of  a  territory  and  a  nationality  which 
is  the  pathway  of  all  contending  interests  and  forces  of 
both  Europe  and  Asia,  but  we  may  note  a  few  facts. 

1.  Full  religious  toleration  appears  morally  certain. 
Repeated  attempts  have  been  made  to  so  amend  the  pro¬ 
posed  constitution  as  to  forbid  “proselytism,  ”  but  they 
have  thus  far  all  been  voted  down  by  the  Assembly.  And 
the  Assembly  will  continue  to  vote  them  down  just  as 
fast  as  they  present  themselves.  Prince  Alexander  Bat- 
tenberg  is  a  Lutheran  and  will  almost  necessarily  pur¬ 
sue  a  liberal  policy,  as  he  has  even  informally  pledged 
himself  to  do.  The  most  active  minds  in  the  Bulgarian 
Assembly  have  included  at  one  time  a  dozen  of  Rev. 
Dr.  Long’s  students  from  Robert  College,  and  he  has 
doubtless,  in  conjunction  with  his  colleagues,  imparted 
to  them  his  own  ideas  of  civil  and  religious  liberty ..  Mis¬ 
sions  have  an  influential  part  to  perform  in  furnishing 
renascent  Bulgarian  nationality. 

2.  The  demand  for  the  Scriptures  in  all  parts  of  the 
country  is  a  strong  proof  that  there  is  here  an  open  door 
that  no  man  can  shut. 

3.  Bulgaria  is  a  strategetic  point  for  penetrating  the 
Greek  Church  and  Russia. 


6o 


THE  OPEN  DOOR  IN  THE  TURKISH  EMPIRE. 


Persia,  the  land  whence  the  tribes  have  emigrated 
over  the  Ural  mountains,  along  the  shores  of  the  Medi¬ 
terranean,  down  the  valley  of  the  Ganges;  the  land  of 
Cyrus  and  of  the  great  empires  of  the  Euphrates;  the 
land  in  which  Daniel  prayed  and  prophesied,  with  a 
written  history  dating  from  1900  B.  C.,  though  now 
much  reduced  in  size,  is  yet  twice  as  large  as  the  German 
Empire,  having  450,000  square  miles,  one-half  arid  and 
the  rest  poorly  developed,  yet  it  supports  a  population 
variously  estimated  at  from  six  to  nine  millions,  two 
millions  of  whom  are  semi-nomadic  tribes.  Ninetv-five 
per  cent,  of  the  remainder  are  pure  Persians  or  Turks, 
for  ages  past  identified  with  Persia.  The  original  Per¬ 
sians  still  occupy  the  central  plateau  “and  although 
always  numerically  weak,  by  their  wonderful  governing 
and  organizing  power  they  have  proved  the  factor  which 
at  various  times  has  spread  the  rule  of  Persia  from  the 
Nile  to  the  Ganges,  and  from  Constantinople  to  Delhi. 
They  are  not  opposed  by  temperament  to  change  and 
progress  like  other  Asiatics.  They  are  nearly  all  Mu¬ 
hammadans  of  the  Sheah  sect,  who  are  less  bigoted 
than  the  Sunni  sect,  represented  in  Constantinople,  Alex¬ 
andria  and  Delhi.  Missionary  labor  has  been  mainly 
confined  to  the  30,000  Nestorians,  and  about  the  same 
number  of  Armenians  and  Jews,  but  its  marked  success 
has  awakened  the  apprehension  and  commanded  the 
respect  of  the  Moslems. 

A  period  of  rapid  change  is  coming  in  Moslem  lands, 
says  Dr.  Shedd.  He  says  that  in  the  long  chain  of  Mos¬ 
lem  lands  from  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  India  and 
China,  the  two  links  that  are  weakest  are  Egypt  and 
Persia.  If  strong  Christian  influence  prevail  in  either  of 
these,  the  chain  is  broken.  The  hope  in  the  case  of 
Persia  is  growing  brighter.  There  are  more  signs  of 
progress  in  opening  the  country  to  commerce  and  to 
Christian  influence  than  in  centuries  before.  A  British 
Navigation  company  are  opening  the  only  navigable 
river  from  the  south.  An  American  company  are  open¬ 
ing  artesian  wells.  Banks  are  founded  with  British 


THE  OPEN  DOORS  IN  THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  SEA.  6l 

capital,  railroads  are  projected  and  highways  for  wheeled 
vehicles  are  under  construction,  and  mining  and  manu¬ 
facturing  companies  are  getting  under  way.  Progress 
is  in  the  air  and  the  most  progressive  man  in  the  Empire 
was  the  late  Shah  himself.  He  and  many  Persian  rulers 
have  desired  to  grant  religious  toleration  and  to  curb  the 
ecclesiastics.  Missionaries  will  need  new  wisdom;  and 
the  home  churches  in  Christian  lands  must  awake  to  the 
fact  that  the  door  in  Persia  opens  wider  and  wider. 


THE  OPEN  DOORS  IN  THE  ISLANDS 

OF  THE  SEAo 

“The  earliest  open  doors  were  in  the  Islands  of  the 
Seas  and  to  the  credit  of  the  church  it  may  be  said  that 
all  the  principal  islands  and  groups  of  the  Pacific,  both 
north  and  south  of  the  equator,  are  either  occupied  by 
different  sections  of  the  Protestant  Church  or  the  respon¬ 
sibility  of  their  occupation  has  been  accepted/’  More 
than  three-hundred  islands  of  Eastern  and  Southern 
Polynesia  have  thrown  away  idolatry  and  its  cruelties. 
The  Polyglot  Polynesian  Church  is  well  represented  in 
the  noble  army  of  martyrs  from  Tahiti,  Samoa,  Tonga 
and  Fiji.  Williams  and  Gordon,  Baker  and  Bishop  Pat- 
teson  are  names  high  on  the  honor  roll  of  the  Church 
of  God. 

‘The  world  holds  these  little  communities  in  poor 
esteem.  *  *  *  They  forget  that  almost  all  the  great 

experiments  and  problems  of  humanity  have  been 
wrought  out  within  small  areas.  Durifig  the  seventy 
years’  toil  in  the  South  Sea  Islands,  we  have  solved  a 
great  problem  of  missionary  economics.”  So  says  a 
report  of  the  London  Missionary  Society. 

Australia  is  scarcely  an  island;  it  is,  rather,  a  conti¬ 
nent;  2,500  by  1,950  miles  in  extent,  it  is  about  equal 
to  the  United  States  exclusive  of  Alaska.  It  has  thou- 


62  THE  OPEN  DOORS  IN  THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  SEA. 

sands  of  miles  of  telegraph  lines.  When  our  Revolu¬ 
tionary  war  began  it  did  not  contain  one  civilized  man. 
Now  its  enlightened  and  civilized  population  counts 
three  millions.  The  public  institutions  of  its  leading 
cities  are  equal  to  those  of  similar  size  in  England.  It 
is  quite  generally  under  Christian  influence.  Australia 
is  destined  to  play  an  important  part  in  the  civilization 
and  Christianizing  of  the  entire  world  of  the  southern 
hemisphere. 

When  Queen  Victoria  ascended  the  throne  the  trade 
of  England  was  $500,000,000.  To-day  the  trade  of  the 
Australian  colonies  exceeds  that  by  $100,000,000. 

Madagascar  is  a  sort  of  Great  Britain  of  Africa,  yet 
is  three  times  the  area  of  Great  Britain.  It  is  not  wholly 
Christianized.  The  French  war  threatened  Protestant 
mission  work,  but  it  has  been  saved  and  cannot  be  set 
wholly  back.  The  national  idols  have  been  removed 
from  the  palace  and  the  priests  are  no  longer  a  part  of 
the  Court.  A  royal  sanctuary  for  the  worship  of  Cod 
has  been  erected.  Christianity  sits  enthroned  in  the  per¬ 
son  of  the  Queen.  The  Sabbath  is  strictly  observed. 
This  island  holds  important  relations  to  the  destruction 
of  the  slave  trade,  and  as  a  base  from  which  the  con¬ 
tinent  of  Africa  is  to  be  reached.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
what  effect  the  late  French  annexation  of  the  island  will 
have  on  Protestant  missions. 

Polynesia  is  now  largely  Christianized.  Starting  with 
Tahiti,  the  London  Society  has  quite  thoroughly  evan¬ 
gelized  the  Society  islands,  Australasia,  Plervey,  Samoa 
and  other  groups.  The  W  esleyans  have  had  marked 
success  on  the  island  of  Tonga  and  neighboring  islands, 
and  the  American  Board  has  graduated  from  its  list  of 
missions  the  Sandwich  Islands,  having  organized  the 
churches,  which  include  the  large  proportion  of  the 
islanders,  into  the  Hawaiian  Evangelical  Association, 
leaving  them  a  missionary  church  carrying  the  Gospel 
into  the  Gilbert,  Marshall,  Caroline  and  Marquesas 
Islands.  In  Fiji,  the  Wesleyan  triumph  has  been  so 


THE  OPEN  DOORS  IN  THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  SEA.  63 

extensive,  that  in  1879  it  was  stated  by  the  governor 
that  of  a  population  of  120,000,  102,000  were  regular 
worshippers  in  Christian  churches,  and  every  family  con¬ 
ducts  morning  and  evening  worship.  The  islands  of  the 
Loyalty  group  are  partly  Roman  Catholic,  but  there  are 
110  heathen,  the  entire  population  being  included  in  the 
Protestant  and  Roman  Catholic  communities. 

Malay  Archipelago.  “If  we  look  at  a  globe  or  map 
of  the  eastern  hemisphere,”  says  Mr.  A.  R.  Wallace  in 
his  Malay  Archipelago,  “we  shall  perceive  between  Asia 
and  Australia  a  number  of  large  and  small  islands,  form¬ 
ing  a  connected  group  distinct  from  those  great  masses 
of  land,  and  having  little  connection  with  either  of  them. 
It  is  inhabited  by  a  peculiar  and  interesting  race  of  man¬ 
kind — the  Malay — found  nowhere  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  insular  tract  which  has  been  named  the  Malay  archi¬ 
pelago.  .  It  happens  that  few  persons  realize  that,  as  a 
whole,  it  is  comparable  with  the  primary  divisions  of 
the  globe,  and  that  some  of  its  separate  islands  are  larger 
than  France  or  the  Austrian  Empire.” 

Sumatra  is  a  thousand  miles  long  and  its  area  is 
equal  to  that  of  England,  Scotland  and  Wales  combined. 
It  is  under  Holland,  and  is  the  second  great  colonial 
power  in  the  world,  with  a  population  of  over  four  mil¬ 
lions.  Of  these,  perhaps  more  than  half  are  in  the  Dutch 
settlements.  Buddhism  was  introduced  from  India,  then 
superseded  by  Muhammadanism.  On  the  sea  coast  are 
independent  Muhammadan  Malay  princes. 

Java,  a  Dutch  island,  about  the  size  of  Cuba,  has 
eight  times  its  population,  and  has  been  under  the  rule 
of  Holland  for  two-and-a-half  centuries.  Europeans, 
Chinese,  Arabs  and  others,  numbering  nearly  a  quarter 
of  a  million,  occupy  the  island,  with  seventeen  millions 
of  Javanese.  Java  has  comfortable  villages,  cities,  roads 
and  bridges.  One  railroad  extends  from  Samarang  into 
the  interior  as  far  as  Jookja;  another  from  Samarang  to 
Ambarrawa.  Morals  are  in  a  wretched  state. 


64  THE  OPEN  DOORS  IN  THE  ISLANDS  OF  THE  SEA. 

Borneo  is  thrice  the  size  of  Great  Britain  with  a  popu¬ 
lation  variously  estimated  at  from  two  to  four  millions. 

The  Dutch  claim  a  million-and-a-quarter  in  their  ter¬ 
ritory.  These  are  chiefly  Malays,  Chinese  and  the  orig¬ 
inal  inhabitants,  the  Dyaks,  who  are  idolators  and  have 
been  accused  of  cannibalism. 

The  Celebes  have  a  population  of  nearly  three  mil¬ 
lions,  of  which,  approaching  a  million  are  Dutch  sub¬ 
jects.  The  Alfooras  are  the  aborigines  of  these  and 
several  other  islands.  They  are  heathen.  Originally 
Brahmanism  was  their  faith,  but  they  have  been  Muham¬ 
madans  since  the  sixteenth  century.  There  are,  how¬ 
ever,  many  Christian  converts  among  them. 

The  Molucca  Islands  have  an  estimated  population  of 
two  millions,  of  which  one-half  are  Dutch  subjects. 

New  Guinea  is  larger  than  France.  It  is  divided 
between  Dutch  and  English  rule.  It  is  1,400  miles  in 
length.  Its  mountain  peaks  rise  more  than  13,000  feet. 
Its  greatest  width  is  300  miles.  The  people  are  in  a 
primitive  state.  They  have  lake  villages  and  are  in  the 
stone  age — no  implement,  no  vessel,  no  tool,  no  weapon 
being  made  of  metal.  They  are  not  disposed  to  cloth¬ 
ing.  They  have  taken  clothing  to  wrap  up  their  drums 
rather  than  themselves.  The  religious  ignorance  seems 
as  dark  as  in  any  part  of  the  globe.  Along  the  coast 
they  have  an  idea  of  a  Great  Spirit,  but  no  idea  of  wor¬ 
ship.  They  have  a  gloomy,  superstitious  fear  of  death. 

Singapore  is  the  capital  of  the  Strait’s  Settlements, 
which  include  Malacca  and  Penang.  Its  growth  has 
been  like  that  of  San  Francisco  or  Melbourne.  It  was 
primeval  forest  in  1818.  It  was  ceded  to  the  East  India 
Company  in  1867  and  erected  into  a  capital.  It  is  a  free 
port,  yet  by  stamp-tax  and  land-revenue  has  an  income 
of  $2,500,000.  There  are  86,000  Chinese  and  22,000 
Malays  out  of  a  population  of  139,000.  But  here  are 
Javanese,  Portuguese,  Arabs,  Jews,  and  12,000  natives 
of  India. 


CHINA. 


By  Rev.  J.  T.  Gracey,  D.  D. 

« 

64  Pages.  Price  15  cents. 

THIS  is  a  condensed  outline  of  the  history,  social 
and  religious  customs ;  also  of  Missionary  labor 
and  success  in  in  the  vast  Empire  of  China.  Probably 
over  150,000  copies  have  been  sold.  It  is  revised  to  date. 


“OUR  MISSIONARY  HEROINES— BY  FAITH.” 

By  J.  T.  Graoey,  D.  D. 

i 6  Pages.  Price  10  cents. 

A  bold  outline  of  Missionary  work  by  women  in 

many  lands. 


WOMAN’S  MEDICAL  WORK. 

By  Mrs.  J.  T.  Gracey. 

16  Pages.  Price  10  cents. 

A  rapid  review  of  the  work  of  Missionary  women  in 
the  Department  of  Medicine  in  many  Mission  fields. 


WOMAN'S  WORK  FOR  AFRICAN  WOMEN. 

By  Mrs.  J.  T.  Gracey. 

16  Pages.  Prico  10  cents. 


These  may  all  be  ordered  of  the  publisher, 

J.  T.  GRACEY,  ROCHESTER,  N.  Y. 


J 


-  s 


